Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

Microsoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/festivalstudiesOOabra 


FESTIVAL    STUDIES 


FESTIVAL    STUDIES 

BEING  THOUGHTS   ON   THE 
JEWISH   YEAR 


BY 

ISRAEL   ABRAHAMS,  M.A. 

READER  IN  TALAIU-MC  TO  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CAMBRIDGE 


PHILADELPHIA 

JULIUS    H.    GREENSTONE 

1906 


Printed  bjT  Ballantvne,  Hanson  &*  Co. 
At  the  Ballantyne  Press 


« 


DEDICATED 

IX    GRATEFUL    AFFECTION 

£o  tbc  flfccmon?  ot 

AS  HER    I.    MYERS 

{1848-1902) 


PREFACE 

Most  of  the  contents  of  this  volume  have  been 
published  over  a  long  series  of  years  in  the  London 
Jewish  Chronicle.  The  earliest  appeared  in  1887, 
the  latest  in  1905.  Chapters  IV.,  V.,  XX.  and 
XXII.  have  not  been  printed  before ;  the  others 
(which  have  been  in  some  cases  revised)  are  now 
reproduced  by  kind  permission  of  the  editor  of 
the  periodical  named. 

These  papers  were  mainly  written  with  no 
other  intention  than  to  provide  momentary  en- 
tertainment or  to  provoke  passing  thought  as  the 
festivals  of  the  Jewish  year  occurred.  Though 
the  volume  has  been  entitled  "  Studies,"  there  is 
nothing  formal  or  systematic  about  it.  But  the 
aspects  of  Jowish  life  which  these  papers  ex- 
press are  not  very  often  presented  in  English, 
and  it  has  seemed  worth  while  to  collect  some 
of  the  papers  into  a  little  volume. 

One  charm  the  volume  must  possess.  Some 
beautiful  renderings  of  medieval  Hebrew  poems 

vil  , 


viii  PREFACE 

will  be  found  in  various  chapters.  The  trans- 
lations on  pages  12,  29-31,  98,  99,  100-101  and 
102  are  the  work  of  Mrs.  H.  Lucas;  those  on 
pages  58  and  82-3  are  by  Mrs.  R.  N.  Salaman. 

The  volume  is  dedicated  to  the  memory  of 
a  dear  friend,  Mr.  Ashcr  I.  Myers,  the  "only 
begetter "  of  most  of  the  book.  It  was  due  to 
his  suggestion  that  the  series  of  papers  was 
undertaken,  and  it  was  his  warm  encourage- 
ment that  induced  the  writer  to  persevere. 

Cambridge,  August  1905. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  The  Hopefulness  op  the  Seder  (Passover)  .        1 


II.  The  Poetry  of  Pentecost  (Pentecost)    . 

III.  The  Procession  of  the  Palms  {Tabernacles) 

IV.  The  Book  of  Life  (Neiv  Year) 
V.  The  Abodah  (Day  of  Atonement) 

VI.  Purim  Parodies  (Purim) 
VII.  Art  on  the  Seder  Table  (Passover) 
VIII.  A  Unique  Haggadah  Picture  (Passover) 
IX.  The  Succah  of  the  Bible  (Tabernacles) 
X.  Some  Succahs  I  have  Known  (Tabernacles) 
XI.  Judjea  Devicta  (Fast  of  Ab)    . 
XII.  Tjie  Decalogue  in  the  Liturgy  (Pentecost) 

XIII.  By  the  Water-side  (Neto  Year) 

XIV.  God  and  Man  (Day  of  Atonement)   . 
XV.  CHAD  GADYA  (Passover)     .... 

XVI.  Myrtle  (Tabernacles)         .... 

XVII.  Willows  of  the  Brook  (Tabernacles)    . 

XVI 1 1.  Queen     Esther    on    tfie    English    Stage 
(I'uriin) 


13 
19 
25 
32 
40 
48 
56 
63 
76 
84 
91 
96 
103 
111 
119 

121 


CONTENTS 


XIX.  Hans  Sachs'  "  Esther  "  (Purim)    . 
XX.  The  Shopar  (New  Year) . 
XXI.  Hanucah  in  Olden  Times  (Hanucah) 
XXII.  The  Hallel  (Festivals)    . 

XXIII.  The  Four  Sons  (Passover) 

XXIV.  Adon  Olam  (Daily  Hymn) 


PAGE 

132 
139 

145 
156 
167 
174 


THE   HOPEFULNESS   OF   THE 
SEDER 

"God's  in  my  home,  all's  well  with  His  world" 
— so  micrht  be  written  the  motto  of  Judaism. 
Storm  might  rage  outside,  calm  reigned  within, 
when  the  hunted  Jew  had  shut  the  door  on  the 
street.  "  Thou  preparest  a  table  for  me  in  the 
presence  of  mine  enemies;  Thou  anointest  my 
head  with  oil ;  my  cup  runneth  over." 

But  on  the  Passover  eve  this  sense  of  security 
was  stronger.  How  characteristic  of  Jewish 
optimism  it  is  to  read  in  various  editions  of  the 
Seder — that  oldest  of  domestic  services,  with 
which  the  Passover  eve  is  ushered  in — "  They  open 
the  door  as  a  reminder  that  it  is  a  Night  of 
Protection  (lei  shimTnurim),  and  the  door  need 
not  be  shut,  for  there  is  no  danger  to-night." 
What  splendid  hopefulness  !  Need  one  recall  the 
melancholy,  the  awful  truth?  Need  one  re-tell 
how  Justinian  and  Recared  interdicted  the  Pass- 
over ;  how  Popes  and  Potentates  permitted  riotous 
attacks  at  Easter  against  the  "  desecrators  of  the 
sacred  Host"  (or  wafer);  how  the  medieval  mob 
(with,    alas,   some  modern    imitators)   made   the 

A 


2    THE   HOPEFULNESS   OF  THE  SEDER 

Passover  eve  hideous  by  a  foul  accusation  ? 
"  There  is  no  danger  to-night " — is  the  answer  of 
the  Seder  to  those  fears  and  foes.  Truly  there  is 
no  danger  to  Judaism  while  such  eternal  hope 
prevails  over  present  despair. 

The  Messiah,  too,  is  coming  to-night.  The 
door  is  open  for  him.  The  same  open  door  that 
bids  defiance  to  the  dread  of  the  night  bids  wel- 
come to  the  radiance  of  the  morning.  The  Messiah 
is  coming.  So  for  fifteen  centuries  Jews  have 
hoped  on  every  Passover.  That  the  Messiah  has 
not  come,  matters  nothing.  "  Man  never  is,  but 
ever  to  be  blessed."  Hope  again  triumphs  over 
experience.  "  Next  year  in  Jerusalem."  So  have 
we  all  said  since  childhood.  I  heard  a  grey-beard 
repeating  it  in  Jerusalem  itself.  "  What,"  I  said, 
"you  are  here  and  I  am  here.  Let  us  say:  Next 
year  also  in  Jerusalem."  "  No,"  replied  the  cheery 
nonagenarian,  "next  year  in  Jerusalem  the  Re- 
built (Ha-benuya)."  The  old  man  firmly  hoped 
that  by  the  following  spring  the  Temple  would 
be  restored,  and  he  would  go  up  with  a  joyous 
throng  to  the  Mount  of  the  House.  Two  Pass- 
overs have  gone  since  then.  The  old  man  still 
lives,  still  hopes.  He  wrote  to  me  last  week:  "I 
am  in  no  mood  to  hurry  God  ;  I  am  only  92." 
Truly  it  is  the  faith  of  such  as  these  that  will  bring 
the  Messiah  to  men.  "Joy  shortened  the  night, 
and  they  were  not  weary,"  says  the  Alshech,  in 
commenting  on  the  all-night  sitting  of  the  Rabin's 
at  Bene  Berak  when  they  discoursed  of  the  de- 
parture from  Egypt. 


THE   HOPEFULNESS  OF  THE  SEDER    3 

Is  the  hopefulness  of  the  Seder  a  mere  delu- 
sion? The  Seder  gives  the  answer.  True,  the 
hand  of  God  has  sometimes  seemed  short,  and 
the  Passover  a  night  of  alarm  rather  than  a  night 
of  protection.  Look  at  larger  maps,  said  Lord 
Salisbury  once  when  Englishmen  thought  danger 
very  near.  Look  at  larger  stretches  of  history, 
says  the  Seder  when  Jews  despond.  "  Few 
in  number,  with  but  seventy  souls  went  thy 
fathers  down  to  Egypt,  and  now  thy  God  hath 
made  thee  as  numerous  as  the  stars."  So  the 
medieval  Jew  read.  So  can  we  read  if  we  have 
eyes.  Since  the  dispersion,  the  Jews  have  con- 
tinuously increased  in  numbers.  Never,  since  the 
second  century,  have  the  Jews  been  as  few  as 
when  they  abode  in  Palestine.  The  Seder,  then, 
has  this  solid  fact  on  which  to  build.  Persecu- 
tions come  and  go,  but  the  Jews  go  on.  "  Not 
one  only,"  says  the  Seder  again,  "  sought  to  anni- 
hilate us,  but  men  in  all  generations  sought  it : 
and  the  Holy  One,  blessed  be  He,  saves  us  from 
their  hand."     Saves,  says  the  Seder,  not  saved. 

Then  comes  the  counterpart.  If  God's  provi- 
dence is  unbroken,  so  must  be  Israel's  confidence. 
God's  love  knows  no  years;  so  in  the  twentieth 
century  Israel's  responsive  love  must  be  young 
and  tender  as  when  God  made  her  the  bride  of 
His  youth.  "  Not  our  fathers  only  did  the  Holy 
One  redeem  from  bondage,  but  us  also  with  them." 
Here  vibrates  the  living  voice  of  Judaism.  This 
is  the  true  tradition,  the  chain  whose  links  are 
human  hearts.    "  Regard  thyself  as  one  redeemed." 


4    THE  HOPEFULNESS   OF  THE  SEDER 

Can  the  lover  despair  of  Love  ?  Can  the  redeemed 
doubt  of  the  Redeemer  ?  Thus  does  life  wait 
upon  hope:  its  reality  conditioned  by  the  force 
of  our  belief  in  it. 

But,  says  the  pessimist,  life  is  not  real.  Life 
is  unmeaning,  it  leads  nowhere,  it  breaks  off  in 
the  middle,  it  is  all  path  and  no  goal.  Again  the 
hopeful  Seder  mitigates  if  it  does  not  solve  our 
doubt.  "  If  God  had  brought  us  to  Sinai  and  had 
not  given  us  the  Law  (Dayenu)  it  would  have 
been  enough  for  us."  The  path  is  enough,  leave 
the  goal  to  God.  Go  to  Sinai,  leave  the  revelation 
to  Him.  Take  the  good  thy  God  provides  thee, 
the  more  will  come.  Life's  increasing  purpose 
reveals  itself  as  we  go  farther  down  the  road. 
Not  to  dig  him  a  grave  in  the  wilderness  did  God 
lead  Israel  from  Egypt,  but  to  draw  him  nearer 
to  Himself,  the  eternal  goal.  "  Speedily,  speedily, 
He  will  build  His  house "  rings  the  merry  Seder 
song.  "  Speedily  in  our  days."  How  long,  then,  do 
we  expect  to  live  if  we  are  to  see  it  in  our  days  ? 
Death  looks  at  us  nearer  than  does  the  realisation 
of  any  hope.  Away  with  such  pessimism,  cries 
the  final  line  of  the  Chad  Oadya — the  most 
dazzling  piece  of  optimism  of  all  the  Seder. 
"  And  the  Holy  One,  blessed  be  He,  will  come  and 
slay  the  Angel  of  Death."  So,  in  a  waking  dream 
of  life  everlasting,  we  go  to  our  sleeping  dreams 
on  the  Seder  night.  Has  the  dream  touched  us  ? 
Has  it  made  us  hope  ?  If  it  has,  it  has  made 
better  Jews  of  us. 


II 

THE   POETRY  OF  PENTECOST 

A  sense  of  grateful  wonder  comes  over  us  as  we 
contrast  Pentecost  as  it  is  with  what  it  might 
have  been.  Thunder  and  storm  raged  round  Sinai, 
but  there  is  no  storm-note  in  our  Pentecost  cere- 
monies. The  synagogue  rested  on  the  joyous- 
ness,  the  serenity  of  the  Revelation.  Yet  thero 
was  every  temptation  towards  cheap  and  dismal 
terrors.  The  synagogue  might  have  crushed  us 
with  gloomy  and  severe  rites,  as  though  the  weight 
of  Sinai  had  fallen  on  us.  But  it  rather  lifted  than 
imposed  a  load,  and  strewed  flowers  rather  than 
fears  in  our  path. 

Pentecost  marks  the  passing  of  spring.  It  was 
not  left  to  Wordsworth  to  interpret  nature  in  terms 
of  human  feeling.  Jehuda  Halevi  long  before 
compared  the  varying  tints  of  spring  to  the  chang- 
ing hues  of  a  girl's  eyes,  and  as  a  deep  red  blush 
crept  in  with  early  summer,  the  earth  seemed,  in 
the  fancy  of  this  Spanish-Jewish  poet : — 

"  A  fair,  fond  bride  that  pours 
Warm  kisses  on  her  lover." 

Medieval  poetry  suggested  to  Synagogue  as  to 
Church  the  custom  of  decking  the  House  of  God 

6 


6  THE   POETRY  OF   PENTECOST 

at  such  a  time  with  flowers.  When  the  Amidah 
prayer  was  over,  boys  brought  in  fragrant  bundles 
of  fresh  grass,  which  they  strewed  on  the  floor 
of  the  synagogue.  Roses  and  lilies  first  appear 
in  Jewish  places  of  worship  in  the  fourteenth 
century — this  particular  custom  of  introducing 
cut  flowers  being  imitated  from  the  church.  But 
the  imitation  was  a  reversion  to  older  habits. 
The  basket  of  First  Fruits  brought  to  the  Temple 
by  every  Israelite  was  an  exemplar  of  dainty 
tastefulness :  the  barley  was  placed  undermost, 
the  wheat  above  it;  over  the  wheat  were  olives, 
higher  still  were  dates,  while  figs  formed  the 
apex  of  the  cone.  Layers  of  leaves  were  arranged 
between  each  kind,  and  clusters  of  grapes  were 
put  round  the  figs  to  form  the  outside  margin  of 
the  basket.  With  such  a  model  as  this,  Jewish 
taste  could  not  fail  to  be  poetical  on  Pentecost. 

A  feature  quite  original  to  the  Jews  was  the 
arrangement  round  the  Ark  of  young  growing 
trees.  "  On  the  Feast  of  Weeks,"  says  the  Talmud, 
"  the  world  is  judged  concerning  the  fruits  of  the 
trees."  Growing  trees  were  therefore  placed  in 
the  synagogue,  that  men  might  invoke  a  blessing 
on  them.  Or,  prettier  notion  still,  the  trees  were 
declared  a  "  memorial  of  the  living  joy  of  the 
Law." 

In  keeping  with  this  attempt  to  bring  the  scent 
of  the  flowers  and  the  harvest  into  the  synagogue, 
the  Book  of  Ruth  was  included  in  the  liturgy  of 
the  day.  Why  do  we  spoil  so  beautiful  a  custom 
by  scampering  through  the  recitation  of  this  lovely 


THE   POETRY  OF  PENTECOST  7 

idyll  ?  It  should  be  read,  as  it  was  once  read,  with 
a  preliminary  benediction,  or,  as  the  Sephardim  still 
read  it,  in  the  afternoon,  verse  by  verse,  with 
lingering  tenderness.  In  parts  of  the  East,  the 
boys  translate  Ruth  into  Arabic,  and  melodi- 
ously sing  it  in  the  vernacular.  In  medieval 
Spain,  too,  Ruth  was  translated.  Many  are  the 
reasons  given  for  reading  this  book  on  Pentecost. 
The  real  motive  of  its  inclusion  was  its  breath  of 
nature,  its  harvest  tone,  so  suited  to  the  day  of 
the  First  Fruits.  But  some  authorities  saw  in 
Ruth's  answer  to  Naomi  the  full  acceptance  of  the 
Mosaic  Law — "thy  people  shall  be  my  people" — 
and  so  it  was  fitting  to  read  the  story  of  this  faith- 
ful proselyte  on  the  day  which  made  proselytes 
of  all  Israel.  Or,  again,  tradition  had  it  that  David 
was  born  and  died  on  Pentecost,  and  the  Book  of 
Ruth  not  only  contains  David's  genealogy  but  also 
points  to  that  Messianic  branch  which  shall  come 
forth  from  the  stem  of  Jesse.  This  thought  was 
uppermost  in  the  Jewish  mind  during  the  weeks 
intervening  between  Passover  and  Pentecost. 
The  Crusades  tinged  these  weeks  with  a  mourn- 
ful longing  for  deliverance,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  Law  was  the  deliverance,  then  and 
for  all  time. 

There  is  a  blending  of  these  two  thoughts, 
without,  however,  any  echo  of  sadness,  in  the 
oft-derided  Akdamutk,  or  "Introductory  Poem," 
still  chanted  in  some  congregations  on  Pentecost 
during  the  reading  of  the  Law.  There  is  a  cer- 
tain virile  force  in  the  eighteenth-century  melody 


8  THE   POETRY  OF  PENTECOST 

to  which  the  Akdamuth  is  sung.  It  is,  I  admit, 
easier  to  perceive  the  poetry  and  beauty  of  this 
composition  now  that  it  no  longer  holds  a  place  in 
the  liturgy  of  one's  own  synagogue.  Barbarous 
in  form,  and  grotesque  in  subject  matter,  this 
composition,  nevertheless,  has  charms.  The  very 
Leviathan  that  it  describes  has  at  least  vigour  and 
fascination.  The  Akdamuth  is,  indeed,  not  so 
simply  pretty  as  the  hymn  by  Israel  Nagrela  to 
the  refrain,  "  My  Beloved  came  down  to  his 
Garden  " — a  hymn  sung  while  the  Scrolls  of  the 
Law  were  carried  in  procession  down  the  synagogue 
on  Pentecost.  It  is  certainly  less  dainty  than  an- 
other hymn  of  the  Kalir  type,  written  for  the  same 
day,  in  which  the  Law  speaks  thus  :  "  God  Himself 
fostered  me,  nigh  Him  He  placed  me,  on  His  knee 
he  fondled  me,  and  betrothed  me  to  Israel." 
Or,  as  Jehuda  Halevi  puts  it — the  dove,  timid, 
tractable,  loving,  representing  Israel : — 

"On  eagle's  wings,  0  Lord,  the  dove  Thou  beared'st ; 
And  she  built  her  nest  within  Thine  inmost  heart." 

Yet  there  is  one  interesting  point  about  the  Ak- 
damuth which  these  other  poems  do  not  present, 
for  the  Akdamuth,  being  written  in  Aramaic,  is  a 
link  in  the  Meturgeman's  chain.  The  Meturge- 
man  of  old  translated  the  Scripture  into  Aramaic, 
and  this  Aramaic  hymn,  composed  by  "  the  pious 
Chazan,"  Meir  ben  Isaac,  a  friend  of  Rashi,  is  a 
survival  of  the  Meturgeman's  art.  In  the  Middle 
Ages  the  Ten  Commandments  were  still  translated 
and  expounded  in  the  vernacular  when  they  were 


THE   POETRY  OF   PENTECOST  9 

read  on  Pentecost.  This  is  the  reason  why  it  be- 
came customary  for  the  Rabbi  to  be  "  called  up  "  on 
this  festival — he  expounded  the  Law  as  he  read  it. 
Hence,  too,  the  introduction  into  the  liturgy  of  the 
Azharoth,  or  moral  didactic  poems,  based  on  the 
613  precepts  of  the  Law.  Such  exhortations  (Az- 
haroth) belong  to  the  oldest  introductions  of  the 
Gaonate,  almost  certainly  they  begin  in  the  eighth 
century.  Later  on,  the  Gaon  Saadia  composed  such 
a  poem,  but  the  best  and  most  popular  was  by 
Solomon  Ibn  Gebriol,  still  retained  in  the  Seph- 
ardic  ritual,  but  replaced,  alas,  in  the  German  by 
far  inferior  work.  They  were  recited  during  the 
Musaph  after  the  words,  "  by  the  hands  of  Moses." 
A  better  custom  was  to  read  them  in  the  afternoon. 
Another  poetical  survival  of  the  Meturgeman,  or 
Expounder,  may  be  seen  in  the  general  deference 
paid  to  women  and  children  on  Pentecost.  It  was 
for  the  women  that  the  translations  were  made. 
The  children  were  introduced  to  "school"  for 
the  first  time  on  Pentecost,  and,  appropriately 
enough,  took  their  first  lesson  in  Hebrew  reading 
on  that  day.  The  pretty  scene  has  been  too  often 
described  for  me  to  repeat  it.  But  I  cannot  help 
referring  to  the  Midrashic  idea  connected  with  this 
first  introduction  of  the  children  to  the  school. 
"From  the  mouth  of  babes  and  sucklings,"  says 
the  Psalmist, "  Thou  didst  establish  strength." 
When  Israel  stood  round  Sinai,  and  God  asked  for 
sureties  to  guarantee  the  fulfilment  of  the  Law,  the 
babes  and  sucklings,  according  to  the  Midrash, 
answered  that  they  would  be  the  pledge,  and  God 


10        THE   POETRY  OF  PENTECOST 

accepted  their  undertaking.  "He  who  gives  a 
Scroll  of  the  Law  to  the  Synagogue  on  Pentecost," 
says  one  authority,  "  is  as  though  he  brought  an 
offering  to  God  at  its  due  season."  Something  of 
the  same  fancy  may  be  detected  also  in  the  intro- 
duction of  the  children  to  the  House  of  God,  in 
sweetening  the  Law  to  them  by  gifts  of  honey- 
cakes. 

Who  will  write  on  the  poetry  of  foods  ?  Pente- 
cost would  add  a  pleasant  chapter  to  such  a  history. 
Honey  and  milk  were  favourite  ingredients,  honey, 
as  we  just  saw,  being  given  to  the  children.  Milk 
was  for  this  occasion  beloved  of  the  adults.  Cheese 
was  an  invariable  item  of  the  midday  meal. 
Further,  cheese-cakes  were  eaten  at  the  all-night 
sitting  for  prayer  and  song,  which  occurred  on  the 
evening  before  the  festival.  Societies  were  formed 
in  the  Middle  Ages  for  arranging  these  watch-night 
services  and  cooking  the  viands  necessary  for  the 
occasional  refreshment  of  the  company.  Milk 
and  honey  were  appropriate  enough,  for  the  text 
"  honey  and  milk  under  thy  tongue  "  was  applied 
to  the  Torah.  Or,  as  a  mystic  poetically  puts  it : 
During  the  six  weeks  between  Passover  and  Pente- 
cost blood  was  turned  to  milk,  judgment  to  mercy, 
and  on  Pentecost  itself  the  "  milk  of  Godly  love  " 
flows  abundantly.  At  the  all-night  sitting,  besides 
many  other  things  from  the  Bible,  Talmud,  and 
Zohar,  the  Song  of  Songs  was  read,  for  every  loving 
phrase  in  that  collection  of  poems  was  applied  to 
God  and  Israel.  It  was  a  poetical  thought  to  read 
this  song ;  it  was  a  poetical  thought  to  introduce 


THE  POETRY  OF  PENTECOST        11 

on  the  table,  both  on  Pentecost  and  Passover, 
the  fruits  mentioned  in  its  pages.  The  "Sinai 
Cake"  was  another  pretty  notion — it  was  made 
like  a  ladder  with  seven  rungs,  typifying  the  seven 
spheres  rent  by  God  when  He  descended  to 
give  the  law.  Less  fanciful  was  the  double 
"  Twin-loaf,"  which  bore  four  heads.  The  "  twins  " 
are  the  zodiacal  sign  for  the  month  of  Sivan. 
But  the  true  explanation  is  different.  The  "  twin 
loaves"  commemorated  the  two  cakes  brought 
as  an  offering  on  Pentecost. 

One  other  feature  of  the  Poetry  of  Pentecost 
must  be  noted.  The  Giving  of  the  Law  was  the 
betrothal  of  Israel  either  with  God  or  with  the 
Torah— for  both  ideas  prevailed.  Processions, 
mostly  imitated  from  current  marriage  rites,  were 
profusely  organised  in  the  East.  Europe  seems 
never  to  have  completely  adopted  this  custom, 
except  in  its  bridal  aspects.  It  was  connected  in 
the  Orient  with  the  adoration  of  the  reputed  tombs 
of  prophets  like  Nahum  and  Ezekiel,  but  there  was 
nothing  at  all  gloomy  in  the  idea.  Jews  would  go 
to  synagogue  and  read  the  early  morning  service. 
Then,  headed  by  a  Scroll  of  the  Law,  the  men  all 
armed  with  various  weapons  would  ascend  some 
neighbouring  hill,  would  read  the  rest  of  the 
morning  service  on  the  mimic  Sinai,  and  then 
would  ensue  a  sham  tourney,  instruments  would 
be  clashed  amidst  a  tremendous  din,  emblematic 
of  the  great  Messianic  war  against  vice  on  the 
coming  day  of  the  Lord.  Sometimes  in  Europe, 
as  in  the  East,  the  procession  occurred  in  syna- 


12        THE  POETRY   OF  PENTECOST 

gogue  without  the  tourney,  yet  with  dance  and 
song ;  sometimes,  as  in  Persia,  the  procession  took 
place  in  the  courtyard  at  home  and  a  great  banquet 
followed. 

This,  and  much  of  the  same  character,  may 
prove  how  ridiculous  is  the  supposition  of  certain 
controversialists  that  the  Law  was  a  burden  to 
the  Jews  !  They  concentrated  round  it  all  their 
fancy  and  love.  They  sang  gleefully  as  they 
beheld  its  sacred  pages,  as  they  remembered  the 
life  it  had  brought  them,  the  spiritual  serenity 
it  imparted.  It  was  doctrine,  and  it  was  joy.  As 
Jehuda  Halevi  wrote : — 

"  The  Law  they  received  from  the  mouth  of  Thy  glory 
They  learn  and  consider  and  understand. 
0  !  accept  Thou  their  song,  and  rejoice  in  their  gladness, 
Who  proclaim  Thy  glory  in  every  land." 


Ill 

THE  PROCESSION  OF  THE  PALMS 

Plants  have  a  language  even  outside  the  albums 
of  sentimental  girls.  Mystical  fancy  reads  into 
the  gifts  of  nature  a  symbolism  of  the  spirit.  The 
palm-tree — closely  associated  with  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles — had  an  emblematic  virtue  in  ancient 
Hebrew  poetry  long  before  the  Mid  rash  likened 
the  palm  to  the  human  frame  and  the  citron  to 
the  human  heart.  "  The  righteous  shall  flourish 
like  the  palm-tree,"  says  the  92nd  Psalm.  The 
comparison  alludes  both  to  the  beauty  and  the 
material  value  of  the  tree,  to  its  stately  height 
and  to  its  sweet  fruit.  Jewish  poets  were  not 
wanting  in  a  healthy  sense  of  the  comeliness  and 
utility  of  virtue,  and  -as  the  ideal  Israel  repre- 
sented righteousness,  so  the  palm  became  a  type 
of  Israel's  national  and  religious  life.  Hence 
though  the  palm  was  by  no  means  plentiful  in 
Palestine,  it  became  a  Judean  emblem,  and  the 
Romans  felt  that  the  tree  was  so  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  Jews,  that  when  they  struck  a 
medal  to  commemorate  the  fall  of  Jerusalem, 
Judea  was  represented  as  a  forlorn  woman  weep- 
ing under  a  palm-tree. 

One  city  of  Palestine  was,  however,  famous  for 

13 


14    THE  PROCESSION  OF  THE   PALMS 

its  palms — Jericho,  now  palm-less,  but  once  "  the 
city  of  palm-trees."  It  is  at  least  a  remarkable 
coincidence  that  the  Procession  of  Palms  on 
Succoth  should  have  another  association  with 
Jericho.  For,  at  the  siege  of  that  city,  the  host 
of  Joshua  compassed  the  place  seven  times  with 
the  Ark  at  the  head  of  the  line,  and  seven  priests 
sounded  seven  rams'  horns.  The  connection  be- 
tween this  scene  and  the  procession  round  the 
altar  on  Tabernacles  is  obvious  enough,  but  it  is 
impossible  to  say  how  old  the  circuit  of  the  altar 
is.  Possibly  it  is  Maccabean  ;  it  is  certainly  not 
later.  When  Judas  Maccabeus  re-dedicated  the 
altar  in  165  B.C.,  the  people  carried  branches  and 
chanted  hymns,  among  them  the  118th  Psalm, 
which  in  Professor  Cheyne's  version  runs  thus 
in  its  27th  verse :  "  Bind  the  Procession  with 
branches,  step  on  to  the  altar-horns."  Plutarch 
saw  in  this  procession  a  species  of  Bacchanalian 
rite,  but  the  only  resemblance  was  that  the  cele- 
brants carried  boughs.  In  the  time  of  the  Mishnah 
any  old  associations  with  pagan  processions  had 
certainly  given  way  to  a  purely  religious  motive. 
Round  and  round  the  altar  went  the  priests,  sing- 
ing "  0  Lord,  save  us  now ;  0  Lord,  save  us  now." 
The  wilder  joyousness  of  the  Water-Drawing  on 
the  night  of  the  15th,  and  the  following  five  nights 
of  Tishri,  with  its  brilliant  illuminations  and  ex- 
citing music,  its  frantic  dances  and  acrobatic  dis- 
plays, seems  indeed  a  survival  of  an  old-world 
nature  revel.  But  this,  too,  was  re-interpreted 
in  terms  of  that  beautiful  line  of  Isaiah,  which 


THE   PROCESSION   OF  THE  PALMS     15 

was  foremost  in  the  thoughts  of  the  masses  of 
Jerusalem  as  they  filled  the  golden  ewers  at  the 
Pool  of  Siloam :  "  With  joy  shall  ye  draw  water 
from  the  wells  of  salvation." 

After  the  dispersion  of  Israel,  it  seems  that  some 
attempt  was  still  made  to  continue  the  old  pro- 
cession in  Jerusalem  itself.  This  was  apparently 
the  case  also  in  the  Middle  Ages.  We  read  that 
in  the  time  of  Hai  Gaon  it  was  customary  to  make 
a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  City  and  to  walk  in 
circuit  round  the  Mount  of  Olives.  At  the  present 
day  the  residents  in  and  around  Jerusalem  fix 
themselves,  on  the  three  great  feasts,  on  coigns 
of  vantage,  at  windows,  and  on  balconies,  whence 
the  old  Temple  wall  and  Mount  Olivet  are  visible. 
This  mountain  is  associated  with  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles,  as  indicated  in  the  14th  chapter  of 
Zechariah,  a  passage  which  the  Synagogue  has 
adopted  as  the  Haftara  for  the  first  day  of  Succoth. 
Jerusalem,  however,  was  inaccessible  to  the  Jews 
in  pre-Islamic  times,  and  even  later.  The  Syna- 
gogue perforce  replaced  the  Temple,  and  the 
Torah  became  Israel's  altar;  the  old  procession 
was  transferred  to  the  ordinary  houses  of  worship, 
with  the  Torah  instead  of  the  altar  as  the  centre 
of  the  circuit.  Here,  however,  two  kinds  of  pro- 
cession must  be  distinguished.  The  older  was 
what  we  now  understand  as  the  Circuit  of  the 
Palms ;  the  later  is  what  we  may  term  the 
Circuit  of  the  Scrolls. 

The  Circuit  of  the  Scrolls  takes  place,  of  course, 
in  the  ninth  day  of  Tabernacles  (Simchath  Torah), 


16    THE  PROCESSION  OF  THE  PALMS 

and,  so  far  as  Europe  is  concerned,  is  restricted  to 
"  German  "  congregations.  On  the  eve  of  the  Day 
of  Atonement  the  Sephardim,  indeed,  take  the 
Scrolls  from  the  Ark,  but  there  is  no  procession. 
Despite  its  connection  with  David's  dancing  ex- 
ploit, which  his  wife  so  grievously  misunderstood, 
the  Procession  of  Scrolls  on  Simchath  Torah,  like 
the  Procession  of  the  Chassidim  on  Friday  nights, 
is  modelled  rather  on  the  marriage  rites  of  the 
Middle  Ages  than  on  the  Temple  service  of  ancient 
days.  In  some  places  the  Bridegroom  of  the  Law 
actually  wore  the  Crown  of  Gold  which  usually 
adorned  the  Sefer  Torah,  and,  as  a  set-off,  the 
current  bridal  ceremonies  were  transferred  to  the 
Scroll. 

How  unlike  to  this  was  the  Procession  of  the 
Palms  is  clear  from  the  characteristic  difference 
that  the  Scroll  of  the  Law,  which  was  taken  out  be- 
fore the  circuit,  was  kept  stationary  on  the  Bimah, 
while  the  worshippers  walked  round  in  solemn 
array.  This  was  one  of  the  reasons  why  in  medie- 
val synagogues  the  Bimah,  or  Reading  Desk,  was 
placed  in  the  middle  of  the  building,  for  had  it 
occupied  any  other  position,  processions  would 
have  been  robbed  of  their  spectacular  effect.  "  Walk 
about  Zion,  go  round  about  her"  (Psalm  xlviii. 
12),  was  the  favourite  text  on  people's  lips.  "  Save 
us  now,"  rang  the  Hosanna  cries ;  mingling  prayer 
with  praise.  For,  to  cite  but  one  of  the  many 
beautiful  figures  to  be  found  in  this  connection  in 
Jewish  books,  the  Hosanna  sounded  at  once  a 
note  of  triumph  and  of  wailing ;  the  Scroll  of  the 


THE   PROCESSION   OF   THE   PALMS     17 

Law  was  as  the  banner  displayed  in  tho  centre  of 
the  camp,  while  round  about  it  marched  victorious 
Israel,  fresh  from  its  triumph  over  sin  won  on  the 
Day  of  Atonement,  brandishing  the  palm,  symbol 
of  the  righteousness  by  which  sin  is  conquered, 
yet  chanting  the  mystic  refrain,  "I  and  He;  Save 
us  now,"  a  phrase  capable  of  many  meanings,  but 
not  inaptly  rendered  by  the  Mechilta,  "  I  and  He, 
man  and  God,  needed  both  for  salvation,  man's 
effort  to  be  like  God,  God's  grace  to  remember 
that  man  is  but  man."  I  have  freely  turned 
this  Mechilta,  but  I  do  not  think  that  this  version 
does  real  violence  to  the  spirit  of  the  passage. 

"  He  who  has  a  Palm-branch  yet  joins  not  in 
the  Procession,  does  ill,"  says  the  Jewish  rubric. 
Self-consciousness  is  fatal  to  the  picturesqueness 
of  public  worship.  It  is  not  the  arrogance  of  the 
clergy,  but  the  false  modesty  of  the  laity  that  is 
thrusting  the  ordinary  Jew  from  his  share  in  the 
service  of  tho  synagogue.  Why  there  should  be 
a  disposition  to  allow  the  beautiful  Procession  of 
the  Palms  to  become  obsolete  is  hardly  explicable 
on  any  other  ground.  Perhaps  the  difficulties  of  ob- 
taining and  storing  the  Lulab  and  Ethrog — Palm- 
branch  and  citron — are  partly  responsible.  Happy 
will  be  that  synagogue  which  shall  be  the  first  to 
take  steps  to  provide  for  every  worshipper  "  the 
fruit  of  goodly  trees,  branches  of  palm-trees,  the 
boughs  of  thick  trees,  and  willows  of  the  brook." 
Nowadays  to  bear  a  Palm-branch  in  a  West-end 
synagogue  is  so  rare  an  act  that  one  must  have 
much  courage  or  much  conceit  to  join  the  meagre 

B 


18    THE  PROCESSION   OF   THE   PALMS 

band  of  the  faithful  processionists.  Yet  the 
custom  is  so  beautiful,  so  rich  in  spiritual  mean- 
ing, that  if  only  more  of  modern  Israel's  valiant 
men  would  respond  to  the  signal,  those  of  us  who 
now  hold  aloof  might  keep  one  another  in  counte- 
nance. Let  more  of  the  stalwarts  lead,  and  some  of 
us  weaklings  may  pluck  up  the  courage  to  follow, 
to  go  in  joy  and  reverence  together  round  all 
that  remains  to  us  of  Zion,  round  the  Law  which 
has  gone  forth  from  it. 


IV 

THE  BOOK   OF  LIFE 

"  Remember  us  unto  life,  0  King,  who  delightest 
in  life,  and  inscribe  us  in  the  Book  of  Life,  for 
Thine  own  sake,  0  living  God." 

This  prayer,  inserted  in  the  daily  service  from 
the  New  Year  till  the  great  fast — from  the  first 
to  the  tenth  of  Tishri — is  of  uncertain  age.  Un- 
mentioned  in  the  Talmud,  it  meets  us  for  the  first 
time  in  an  eighth-century  collection  of  laws.  Thus 
its  antiquity  is  respectable,  if  not  venerable.  But 
the  underlying  idea  is  far  older,  and  the  metaphor 
used  carries  us  back  to  an  ancient  order  of  things. 

It  is  plausibly  supposed  that  the  "  Book  of  Life  " 
was  a  spiritual  fancy  corresponding  to  a  quite 
material  fact.  We  have  several  indications  that 
at  a  fairly  early  date  there  was  drawn  up  in  Judea 
a  civil  list,  or  register,  in  which  the  names  of  fully 
qualified  citizens  were  officially  entered.  Such  a 
practice  is  attested  by  statements  and  allusions 
in  Scripture,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  figure  of 
the  "  Book  of  Life "  was  thence  derived.  To  be 
enrolled  in  the  Book  of  Life  would  imply  member- 
ship of  the  divine  commonwealth ;  to  be  blotted 
out  would  be  to  suffer  disfranchisement. 

From  this  image  the  step  would  be  easy  to  a 

19 


20  THE   BOOK   OF   LIFE 

book  containing  a  record  of  man's  doings.  This 
phase  of  the  conception  is  found  in  the  Mishnah. 
"Know  what  is  above  thee— a  seeing  eye  and  a 
hearing  ear,  and  all  thy  deeds  written  in  a  book" 
(Aboth.  ii.  1).  These  three  things — which,  as  the 
author  of  the  saying  urges,  restrain  a  man  from 
sin — are  in  essence  one,  and  they  convey  what  is 
perhaps  the  leading  principle  of  Judaism  as  a 
discipline.  Individual  responsibility,  with  the 
corollary  of  inevitable  retribution ;  inevitable,  that 
is,  unless  the  wayfarer  will  divert  himself  to  the 
road  of  repentance,  prayer,  and  charity — the  path 
by  which  the  sinner  finds  a  new  approach  to  virtue 
and  life.  The  moral  is  enforced  in  the  third 
chapter  of  the  same  collection  of  "  Sayings  of  the 
Jewish  Fathers,"  where  life  is  compared  to  a  shop 
with  its  open  ledger  of  credit  and  debit.  Here, 
again,  the  idea  is  in  germ  scriptural.  Sin  blots 
man  out  from  the  book,  virtue  sets  his  name  there 
in  indelible  ink.  Malachi  speaks  of  a  book  of 
remembrance,  written  in  his  day  for  those  that 
feared  the  Lord  and  thought  upon  His  name. 
"  And  they  shall  be  Mine,  saith  the  Lord,  in  that 
day  when  I  make  up  My  jewels."  Alas!  that  this 
is  a  mistranslation ;  the  Revised  Version  has  ruth- 
lessly deprived  us  of  the  jewels,  and  we  must  bid 
farewell  to  the  beautiful  phrase  which  in  the 
Authorised  Version  ends  the  sentence  of  Malachi 
just  cited.  But  the  idea  is  clear  enough.  In  the 
day  of  judgment — in  the  day  wherein  God  will 
make  a  peculiar  treasure — He  will  account  as 
His  the  children  who  have  served  their  Father, 


THE  BOOK  OF  LIFE  21 

and  whoso  names  are  inscribed  in  the  book  of 
remembrance.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  just  as 
some  things  are  written  in  the  Book  for  man's 
advantage,  so  are  others  entered  to  his  disadvan- 
tage. "  Behold,  it  is  written  before  Me :  I  will  not 
keep  silence,  but  will  recompense,  even  recom- 
pense into  their  bosom,  your  iniquities,  and  the 
iniquities  of  your  fathers  together,  saith  the  Lord  " 
(Isaiah  lxv.  G-7).  Between  these  two  extremes, 
between  good  marks  for  virtue  and  bad  marks 
for  vice,  stand  entries  which  cry '  aloud,  not  for 
marks  at  all,  but  for  mercy.  In  the  56th  Psalm, 
whose  author  has  been  termed  "the  mouthpiece 
of  oppressed  and  suffering  Israel,"  the  tears  of  the 
trusting  yet  ill-faring  people  are  put  into  God's 
bottle.  "  By  a  bold  figure  God  is  said  to  collect 
and  treasure  Israel's  tears,  as  though  they  were 
precious  wine.  Kay  quotes  St.  Bernard's  saying 
'Lacrimae  poenitentium  vinum  angelorum'" (Kirk- 
patrick).  "  Are  not  my  wanderings,  my  tears,  in 
Thy  book  ?  "  continues  the  Psalmist.  The  thought 
is  as  tender  as  it  is  solacing.  It  is  even  finer 
than  Lawrence  Sterne's  ever-memorable  phrase. 
Lawrence  Sterne's  accusing  angel  blushes  as  he 
hands  in  a  frail  man's  slip;  the  recording  angel 
blots  it  out  with  a  tear.  The  Psalmist  would  have 
man's  frailties,  his  weaknesses,  his  sorrows,  his  tears, 
entered  in  the  Book  of  Life,  as  his  most  eloquent 
advocates  for  the  pity  of  the  Judge. 

Dr.  Kohler  says:  "The  origin  of  the  heavenly 
Book  of  Life  must  be  sought  in  Babylonia,  whereas 
the  annual  Judgment  Day  seems  to  have  been 


22  THE   BOOK  OF  LIFE 

adopted  by  the  Jews  under  Babylonian  influence 
in  post-exilic  times."     Be  that  as  it  may,  the  idea 
became  completely  Judaised,  and  was  turned  to 
splendid  moral  account.     Some  modern  Jews  are 
apt  to  feel  a  natural  but  unjustifiable  repugnance 
to  the  notion  of  an  annual  balancing  of  the  Book 
of  Life.     Certainly,  the  notion  is  sometimes  pre- 
sented crudely  in  the  liturgy  of  the  New  Year  and 
the  Day  of  Atonement.    Written  in  the  Book  of 
Life  on  the  New  Year,  the  entry  is  sealed  on  the 
Day  of  Atonement.     In  even  more  detail,  a  well- 
known  piyut,  or  liturgical  poem,  for  the  New  Year 
reproduced  the  old  Rabbinical  notion  of  the  three 
books :  one  for  the  thoroughly  righteous,  one  for 
the  thoroughly  wicked,  and  one  for  the  intermediate 
class  who,  neither  righteous  nor  wicked  overmuch, 
can  exchange  hell  for  heaven  by  the  blessed  trilogy 
of  repentance  and  prayer  and  charity.     All  this,  if 
too  mechanically  expressed,  is  likely  to  be  injuri- 
ous.    But  when  the  Rabbis,  with  Abbahu  in  the 
Talmud,  represented  God  as  seated  at  the  New 
Year  on  the  throne  of  judgment,  with  the  books  of 
the  living  and  the  books  of  the  dead  open  before 
Him,  all  that  they  meant  was  to  impart  a  stronger 
sense  of  gravity  and  a  more  than  usual  serious- 
ness   to   the   thoughts    of  men    during  the   ten 
penitential  days.     Were  they  untrue  to  human 
nature  in  so  doing  ?     They  understood  better  than 
we  moderns  that  there  is  a  time  for  everything ; 
that  man's  conscience  cannot  bear  the  strain  of 
continuous  high  pressure;  that  it  is  well  for  him 
to  appoint  a  season  for  self-communion,  a  season 


THE  BOOK   OF  LIFE  23 

when  he  can  live  morally  and  spiritually  on  a 
higher  plane.  "The  Rabbis  were  far  from  con- 
fining the  need  or  utility  of  repentance  to  the 
penitential  season  from  New  Year  to  the  Day  of 
Atonement.  Very  common  with  them  is  the 
saying, '  Repent  one  day  before  thy  death.'  When 
his  disciples  said  to  R.  Eleazar,  '  Does  then  a  man 
know  when  he  will  die  ? '  he  answered,  '  The  more 
necessary  that  he  should  repent  to-day;  then,  if 
he  die  to-morrow,  all  his  days  will  have  been  passed 
in  penitence,  as  it  says :  Let  thy  garments  be 
always  white  (Eccles.  ix.  8) ' "  (Montefiore).  The 
annual  stock-taking  of  a  business  man  does  not 
imply  that  he  is  a  careless  trader  during  the  rest 
of  the  year.  And  the  metaphor  holds  in  the 
spiritual  world  also. 

"Temporal  life  is  apparently  prayed  for  in  the 
litunrical  formula:  Inscribe  us  in  the  Book  of 
Life."  No  doubt  one  form  of  the  prayer  is,  as 
Prof.  Margolis  says,  for  temporal  life  and  prosperity. 
It  is  a  modern  weakness  on  the  part  of  Jews  to 
feel  it  necessary  to  apologise  for  such  prayers. 
Life,  earthly  and  material,  is  a  good  thing;  pros- 
perity is  worth  praying  for.  Judaism  could  glance 
at  the  paradox :  "  How  shall  a  man  die  ?  Let  him 
live.  How  shall  a  man  live  ?  Let  him  die."  But 
while  accepting  the  Talmudic  paradox  as  a  beauti- 
ful expression  of  the  supremacy  of  the  inner  over 
the  outer,  of  spirit  over  matter,  the  eternal  over 
the  mortal,  Judaism  did  not  underrate  the  value 
of  earthly  life  because  it  esteemed  more  highly  the 
worth  of  life  everlasting.     Long  life  on  earth  was 


24  THE   BOOK   OF  LIFE 

a  blessing,  and  the  Jewish  mind  did  not  lose  hold 
of  this  healthy  fact  under  the  fascination  of  the 
belief  that  the  less  of  earth  the  more  of  heaven, 
the  shorter  life  the  longer  immortality.  And  yet 
it  did,  it  must,  regard  the  blessing  of  life  rather  as 
a  means  than  an  end.  A  short  life  might  be  full 
of  living ;  for,  as  the  Rabbi  said,  some  men  can 
qualify  themselves  for  eternity  in  an  hour.  A 
long  life  was,  on  the  other  hand,  a  fuller  prepara- 
tion, a  fuller  opportunity.  "Rabbi  Jacob  said, 
This  world  is  like  a  vestibule  before  the  world  to 
come ;  prepare  thyself  in  the  vestibule,  that  thou 
mayest  enter  into  the  hall." 

And  so  in  certain  passages  of  Scripture  and  the 
Apocalypses  the  "  Book  of  Life  "  transcends  earthly 
existence  and  identifies  itself  with  the  spiritual 
life  with  God.  The  liturgy  of  the  New  Year  also 
reproduces  this  enlarged,  spiritualised  conception. 
Another  piyut  runs :  "  For  life  eternal  may  the 
faithful  ones  be  written,  may  they  behold  the 
pleasantness  of  the  Lord,  and  find  remembrance  in 
His  heavenly  Temple." 

There  is  nothing  childish  or  mechanical  in  such 
hopes.  It  is  an  aspiration  for  the  highest  happi- 
ness :  a  happy  life  on  earth,  a  still  happier  here- 
after ;  here  effort,  there  attainment ;  the  life  of 
man  unified,  harmonised,  in  all  its  parts ;  the  finite 
transfigured  by  its  absorption  into  the  infinite. 


V 

THE  ABODAH 

There  stands  out  a  clear  historical  fact  which, 
more  than  any  mere  theory,  reveals  the  spiritu- 
ality of  Judaism.  The  biblical  scheme  of  atone- 
ment for  sin  was  dependent  upon  the  sacrificial 
system.  Atonement  was,  in  the  developed  religion 
of  Israel,  an  inward  process ;  but  in  the  Bible 
this  inward  process  was  closely  allied  to  an  out- 
ward sacrificial  ceremonial.  The  outward  cere- 
monial disappeared  with  the  Temple,  yet  the 
inward  process  not  only  remained  intact,  it  was 
so  expanded  as  to  occupy  the  whole  field  of 
which  it  had  previously  filled  only  a  part.  No 
other  religion  has  ever  been  so  severely  tried ; 
no  other  religion  has  been  called  upon  to  sub- 
stitute prayer  for  sacrifice.  Prayer,  it  is  true, 
has  taken  the  place  of  sacrifice  in  other  re- 
ligions; Judaism  alone  has  been  faced  by  the 
problem  how,  beginning  with  sacrifice,  to  end 
with  prayer.  "  We  will  offer  instead  of  bulls, 
the  words  of  our  mouth"  (Hosea  xiv.  2) — these 
words  are  the  constant  text  on  which  the  Jewish 
liturgy  of  the  Day  of  Atonement  dwells.  And 
this  insistence  represents  at  once  the  triumph 
of  the  sacrificial  system  and  the  vindication  of 


26  THE  ABODAH 

spiritual  Judaism — the  triumph  of  the  sacrificial 
system  inasmuch  as  its  deeply  beneficial  influence 
enabled  Judaism  to  do  without  it,  the  vindica- 
tion inasmuch  as  Judaism,  put  to  the  test,  came 
through  it  not  merely  unscathed  but  purified  and 
ennobled. 

Simon  the  Just  used  to  say :  "  Upon  three 
things  the  world  is  based:  upon  the  Torah,  the 
Abodah,  and  Charity."  The  Torah  is  not  merely 
the  Law  (Pentateuch),  it  is  the  whole  body  of 
revealed  truth  and  doctrine ;  the  Abodah,  as  the 
word  would  be  used  by  a  High  Priest  such  as 
the  speaker  was,  means  the  service  and  sacrifices 
of  the  Temple,  which  was  then,  of  course,  still 
standing ;  Charity,  in  the  Hebrew  phrase  employed, 
expresses  loving-kindness,  humanity,  brotherly  re- 
gard, practical  and  sympathetic.  Thus  in  one  of 
the  oldest  passages  of  the  Mishnah,  going  back 
to  the  third  century  B.C.,  we  already  find  the 
Abodah,  or  sacrificial  system,  associated  on  the 
one  side  with  love  of  God  and  on  the  other  with 
love  of  man.  The  authors  of  some  of  the  most 
spiritual  of  the  Psalms  were  Temple  singers,  men 
who  loved  the  sacrificial  ritual  and  were  not  only 
able  to  weld  that  love  into  an  intensely  inward 
religion,  but  even  composed  for  use  during  the 
offering  of  the  sacrifices  these  Psalms  which  the 
world  has  ever  since  accepted  as  the  most  potent 
means  of  bringing  man's  soul  into  communion 
with  God. 

Is  it  so  difficult  for  us  to  understand  this 
alliance  of  the  outward  with  the  inward  ?     If  it 


THE  ABODAH  27 

is,  the  reason  can  only  be  that  we  have  lost 
something  of  our  Judaism.  But,  in  actual  fact 
wo  do  not  experience  the  difficulty  suggested. 
Contrast,  for  instance,  the  Hebrew  word  tesltubah 
(Return)  with  its  imperfect  English  equivalent 
repentance  (Regret).  Regret  or  contrition  is  an 
essential  element  in  atonement ;  but  Return 
(amendment)  is  an  equally  essential  element. 
An  inward  feeling  of  contrition,  translating  itself 
into  an  outward  fact  of  amendment — the  two 
being  bound  together  by  the  tender  love  and 
pity  of  God  who  stretches  forth  His  hand  to 
the  contrite  and  helps  him,  expects  him,  to  turn 
from  his  evil  ways  and  live.  Mere  acts  of  prac- 
tical reparation,  without  the  underlying  sense 
that  sin  estranges  man  from  God,  may  be  a 
poor  atonement,  but  a  sense  of  sin  unaccom- 
panied by  practical  reparation  is  still  poorer. 

So  we  can  perceive  in  the  Abodah  of  the  Day 
of  Atonement  the  same  union  of  ideas.  As  de- 
scribed in  the  Mishnah,  the  Abodah  was  at  once 
a  ritual  of  hand  and  heart.  The  sacrifices  were 
elaborate,  but  not  more  so  than  the  confessions. 
Adorned  with  all  the  art  that  olden  Israel 
knew,  the  Abodah  must  have  been  a  magnificent 
spectacle,  moving  and  impressive.  It  was  ritual- 
ism at  its  highest.  The  bulls  and  the  goats, 
the  incense  and  the  oblations,  the  ablutions  and 
the  sprinklings — these  stand  out  in  the  Abodah  of 
the  Day  of  Atonement.  But  equally  impressive 
is  the  threefold  confession  solemnly  pronounced 
by   the   High   Priest — the    confession   of  sin   on 


28  THE   ABODAH 

behalf  of  himself,  the  Priestly  order,  and  the 
whole  house  of  Israel.  "  He  laid  his  two  hands 
upon  the  goat  and  confessed,  speaking  thus :  '  0 
God,  Thy  people,  the  house  of  Israel,  have  sinned, 
worked  iniquity  and  transgressed  against  Thee ;  I 
beseech  Thee  by  Thine  ineffable  Name  to  pardon 
the  sins,  iniquities,  and  transgressions  which  Thy 
people,  the  House  of  Israel,  have  committed  against 
Thee,  as  is  written  in  the  Law  of  Moses  Thy  ser- 
vant, For  on  this  day  shall  he  make  an  atone- 
ment for  you,  to  cleanse  you  from  all  your  sins 
before  the  Lord.' " 

There  is  no  need  to  elaborate  the  scene.  The 
Mishnah  in  its  simple,  effective  style  pictures  it 
to  us  inimitably.  "  And  the  priests  and  the  people 
who  stood  in  the  Fore-court,  when  they  heard  the 
ineffable  Name  coming  forth  from  the  mouth  of 
the  High  Priest  in  holiness  and  purity,  knelt  down, 
prostrated  themselves  and  fell  upon  their  faces, 
saying,  '  Blessed  be  the  Name  whose  glorious 
kingdom  is  for  ever  and  ever.'  And  he  was  careful 
to  finish  the  pronunciation  of  the  Name  while 
they  were  reciting  this  response  ;  and  he  then  said 
unto  them,  'Ye  shall  be  clean,'"  completing  the 
text  (Leviticus  xvi.  30),  which  had  been  interrupted 
at  the  pronunciation  of  the  Name  by  the  reveren- 
tial response  of  priests  and  people. 

The  scene  reproduces  itself  in  part  in  the  modern 
synagogue.  In  part  only,  for  much  of  it  is  a  mere 
memory.  Never,  however,  was  memory  more  in- 
spiring, more  exquisitely  utilised.  The  very  word 
Abodah,  which  once  meant  the  Tern  pie  service  itself, 


THE   ABODAH  29 

now  means  the  Synagogue  ritual  in  which  that 
service  is  affectionately  and  touchingly  described. 
Step  by  step,  the  Synagogue  Abodah  follows  the 
Temple  Abodah,  and  though  the  sacrifices  are 
absent  and  the  "  ineffable  Name "  is  no  longer 
pronounced,  yet  the  solemnity  remains  and  is 
marked  by  the  prostration  of  the  whole  congre- 
gation— rare  indeed  in  the  synagogue.  Prostra- 
tion is  not  universal  on  the  Day  of  Atonement ; 
it  seems  to  have  been  early  abandoned  in  Pales- 
tine and  retained  only  in  Babylon.  At  all  events, 
the  practice  in  modern  times  varies.  The  solem- 
nity of  the  Abodah  is  absolutely  independent  of  the 
practice,  for  here  again  Judaism  does  not  depend 
upon  specific  ceremonies,  even  though  it  employs 
ceremony  so  largely  and  so  successfully. 

There  is  one  great  change,  however.  In  olden 
times  the  Temple  Abodah  ended  in  a  cheerful 
note.  The  people,  aglow  with  spiritual  joy,  had 
sought  pardon  and  humbly  believed  that  it  had 
attained  it.  Hence  a  psean  of  glad  thanksgiving, 
a  glorious  eulogy  of  the  High  Priest  in  the  beauty 
of  his  holiness,  concluded  the  ceremonial.  The 
Synagogue  has  retained  the  psean,  but  allows  it  to 
fade  away  into  a  sadderchime.  For,  after  all,  the 
olden  scene  has  been  described,  not  witnessed. 
Memory  with  the  Jew  always  has  a  bitter  taste ; 
it  reminds  him  of  a  lost  happiness.  We  hear  but 
do  not  see. 

"  Happy  he  that  day  who  saw 
How,  with  reverence  and  awe 
And  with  sanctity  of  mien, 
Spoke  the  Priest :  '  Ye  shall  be  clean 


30  THE  ABODAH 

From  your  sins  before  the  Lord '  ; 

Echoed  long  the  holy  word, 

While  around  the  fragrant  incense  stole. 

Happy  he  whose  eyes 

Saw  at  last  the  cloud  of  glory  rise, 

But  to  hear  of  it  afflicts  our  soul." 

There  is  genuine  pathos  in  this  note  of  the 
medieval  poet,  Solomon  Ibn  Gebriol.  But  though 
we  feel  the  pathos,  we  must  not  yield  to  it.  Just 
as  the  Temple  Abodah  of  the  past  has  given  place 
to  the  Synagogue  Abodah  of  the  present,  just  as 
the  olden  sacrifices  have  been  transformed  and 
transfigured  into  our  modern  prayers — these  like 
those,  and  even  more  than  those,  a  heart  worship 
— so  while  we  realise  what  we  have  lost,  we  must 
not  omit  to  realise  what  we  have  gained;  the 
future  is  with  us  as  well  as  the  past.  And  thus 
the  gifted  translator  (Alice  Lucas),  from  whom 
Ibn  Gebriol's  just  cited  verse  has  been  taken,  ends 
off  the  song : — 

"  Ever  thus  the  burden  rang 
Of  the  pious  songs,  that  sang 
All  the  glories  past  and  gone 
Israel  once  did  gaze  upon, — 
Glories  of  the  sacred  fane, 
Which  they  mourned  and  mourned  again, 
With  a  bitterness  beyond  control. 
Happy  he  whose  eyes 
Saw  (they  said)  the  cloud  of  glory  rise, 
But  to  hear  of  it  afflicts  our  soul. 

Singers  of  a  bygone  day 
Who  from  earth  have  passed  away, 
Now  ye  see  the  glories  shine 
Of  that  distant  land  divine, 


THE   ABODAH  31 

Ami  no  more  (entranced  by  them) 

Mourn  this  world's  Jerusalem. 

Happy  ye  who,  from  that  heavenly  goal, 

See,  with  other  eyes 

Far  than  ours,  such  radiant  visions  rifle, 

That  to  hear  of  them  delights  our  soul." 

Thus  is  rebuilt  on  the  reverent  memories  of  the 
past  the  not  less  reverent  dreams  of  the  future. 
Can  we  realise  such  dreams  ?  Abodah  in  various 
forms  has  its  day  and  passes;  but  while  service 
(for  that  is  the  literal  meaning  of  Abodah)  remains, 
the  servant  need  not  despair  of  the  nearness  and 
love  of  the  Master.  Service  atones;  on  service 
the  world  stands. 


VI 

PURIM   PARODIES 

There  is  but  one  step  from  the  sublime  to  the 
ridiculous.  As  Scott  remarks,  and  as  psycholo- 
gists confirm,  the  inclination  to  laugh  is  the  most 
uncontrollable  when  the  solemnity  of  time  and 
occasion  renders  laughter  peculiarly  improper. 
Making  sport  of  sacred  things  is  by  no  means 
identical  with  what  in  modern  times  we  call  irre- 
verence. This  type  of  humorist  is  less  scoffer 
than  lover;  his  laughter  arises  rather  from  an 
excess  of  reverence  than  from  a  defect  in  it. 
Nowadays  men  dare  not  parody  sacred  things. 
Not  only  they  do  not,  they  dare  not;  in  former 
ages  men  not  only  dared,  they  did  it.  We  have 
to  be  very  careful  in  our  demeanour  towards  a 
stranger  to  whom  we  pay  an  occasional  visit  of 
ceremony;  we  must  put  on  company  manners, 
and  avoid  behaviour  arguing  familiarity.  With 
a  dear  and  intimate  friend  we  can  act  otherwise. 
An  intimate  friend  knows  that  we  respect  him, 
and  we  may  relax  into  momentary  disrespect 
without  sacrificing  our  friendship.  In  fact,  if  he 
is  constantly  in  our  thoughts,  so  constantly  in- 
deed that  we  have  few  thoughts  which  are  not 
of   him    or   about  him,   how    can   we   seek   the 

32 


PURIM   PARODIES  33 

relaxation  of  ridiculo  except  by  making  sport  of 
him  ?  —  a  sport  that  soon  finds  its  level,  and 
makes  way  for  renewed  tokens  of  regard. 

The  same  considerations  apply,  with  due  modi- 
fication, to  the  case  of  religious  observances.  The 
more  men's  minds  are  full  of  their  faith,  the 
more  inclined  they  are  to  poke  fun  at  it.  The 
mirth  is  harmless  and  transitory,  the  faith  deep- 
seated  and  permanent.  Men  must  laugh,  and 
they  laugh  at  what  interests  them  most.  In 
the  pre-Protestant  age,  the  monks  themselves 
connived  at  tho  buffooneries  of  tho  Lord  Abbots 
of  Misrule,  Boy  Bishops,  Presidents  of  Fools,  or 
whatever  else  the  mock  representatives  of  the 
highest  ecclesiastics  were  called.  True,  these 
saturnalia  belong  to  an  old-world  order  of  spring 
customs  which  go  back  to  ancient  Babylonia 
and  beyond  it.  But  our  interest  in  the  survival 
of  such  customs  in  the  Middle  Ages  is  psycho- 
logical rather  than  historical.  Readers  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott's  "  Abbot,"  or  of  Mr.  Frazer's  "  Golden 
Bough,"  must  be  acquainted  with  tho  length  to 
which  these  medieval  saturnalia  were  carried :  the 
disrespect  to  authority  which  authority  itself  en- 
joyed for  the  nonce,  what  seems  to  us  the  blasphemy, 
the  scurrilous  imitations  even  of  church  hymns, 
the  caricatures  of  the  most  sacred  rites — conduct 
so  shocking  to  our  sense  of  decency,  mainly,  it 
is  to  be  supposod,  because  our  faith  also  has 
become  a  matter  of  mere  respectability,  of  what 
Tom  Brown  called  "kid-glove  go-to-meeting  eti- 
quette," which  cannot  relax  itself  without  coming 

c 


34  PURIM   PARODIES 

entirely  to  pieces.  Jews  have  needed  their  carni- 
vals also.  They,  too,  on  mirthful  occasions,  have 
been  known  to  appoint  sham  and  not  over  soft- 
mouthed  individuals  as  pseudo-Rabbis,  in  whom 
was  vested  the  inalienable  right  of  laughing  at 
sacred  things,  caricaturing  the  prayer-book,  and, 
to  them  most  enjoyable  prank  of  all,  ridiculing 
the  real  Rabbi,  imitating  his  tricks  of  speech 
and  manner  and  gait,  reproducing  his  pet  weak- 
nesses, and  altogether  taking  it  out  of  him  for 
the  respect  so  cordially  shown  at  other  times. 

Carnival  merry-makings  have  held  a  conspicu- 
ous place  in  all  religious  systems,  for  laughter  is 
not  after  all  blasphemy,  nor  is  burlesque  deadly 
sin.  David  before  the  Ark,  staid  and  venerable 
Rabbis  at  the  Ceremony  of  the  Water-drawing 
during  the  feast  of  Tabernacles,  did  not  hesitate 
to  fall  in  with  popular  sentiment.  On  the  Re- 
joicing of  the  Law  at  the  present  day,  many 
synagogues  in  Russia  and  even  in  England — syna- 
gogues, of  course,  of  the  old-fashioned  type — are 
the  scenes  of  uproarious  merriment,  harmless  yet 
noisy.  It  must  be  remembered  that  Jews  are  only 
now  beginning  to  differentiate  severely  between  the 
sacred  and  the  secular.  In  the  Middle  Ages  such 
a  distinction  was  impossible ;  it  would  certainly 
have  been  unintelligible  if  made.  Life  in  all  its 
parts  was  equally  holy,  equally  profane.  The  Jew, 
therefore,  never  hesitated  to  bring  the  world  into 
the  synagogue ;  and  are  we  so  sure  that  he  was 
wrong  and  we  right  ?  If  he  took  the  world  more 
into  the  synagogue  than  we,  he  also  carried  the 


PURIM   PARODIES  35 

synagogue  more  often  into  the  world.  Be  that 
as  it  may,  Judaism  had  its  carnivals,  chief  among 
them  Purim.  It  is  not  intended  to  describe  here 
all  the  forms  of  masking  and  mumming  in  which 
overpent  emotions  found  expression.  Attention 
will  be  limited  to  literary  parodies,  though  to  do 
justice  to  so  curious  a  theme  would  need  far 
more  space  than  can  well  be  afforded. 

Systematic  scientific  treatment  seems  out  of 
place;  but  those  who  cannot  relax  their  critical 
severity  even  on  Purim  may  find  in  Steinschneider's 
bibliography  enough  to  satisfy  the  most  ravenous 
thirst.  We  must  be  content  with  sipping  the 
sparkling  cup ;  stronger  heads  are  needed  to  drain 
it  to  the  dregs. 

The  Purim  parodies  may  be  classed  roughly 
under  two  heads;  those  which  caricature  the 
Rabbinical  style  of  argument  and  those  which 
parody  the  prayers.  The  former  are  extremely 
funny ;  the  latter  are  clever,  but  too  little  to  our 
present  taste  to  make  much  quotation  desirable. 
Thus  we  have  imitations  of  the  Hallel  (Psalms 
cxiii-exviii)  in  praise  of  wine,  beginning  appropri- 
ately, but  indecorously,  Hallelujayin,  "  Praise  ye 
Wine."  ("From  the  rising  of  the  sun  unto  the 
setting  thereof  we  will  praise  it  in  our  mouths."). 
Even  the  Nishmath  prayer  is  converted  into  an 
anacreontic  ode  with  scarcely  the  change  of  a  word. 
The  Selichoth,  or  propitiatory  prayers,  are  likewise 
drawn  upon  to  add  to  the  store  of  amusement ; 
so  changed  is  our  feeling  in  the  matter  that  we 
cannot  tolerate  quotation  of  specimens. 


36  PURIM  PARODIES 

More  legitimate  and  amusing  are  the  parodies 
of  the  Talmudic  method ;  the  caricatures  are  absurd 
enough,  but  they  are  at  least  as  funny  as  they 
are  foolish.  Only  those  who  have  some  know- 
ledge of  the  Rabbinic  style  of  reasoning  can  fully 
appreciate  the  merits  of  these  parodies,  but  the 
following  passages  in  imitation  of  the  Passover 
Haggadah  speak  for  themselves:  "Whoever  has 
not  done  these  three  things  on  Purim  has  not  done 
his  duty — and  these  are  they,  Eating,  Drinking, 
and  Dancing."  ..."  Everyone  who  is  thirsty,  let 
him  come  in  and  drink."  "  In  what  differs  this 
day  from  all  other  days  ?  On  other  days  you  may 
drink,  on  this  day  you  must."  ..."  He  who 
drinks  oftenest  and  deepest  is  most  to  be  praised." 
...  "It  happened  once  with  Rabbi  Old  Wine 
and  his  associates  that  they  ate  and  drank  at  the 
Purim  feast  all  day  and  night,  until  they  all 
fell  under  the  table  with  their  cups  in  their  hands. 
On  the  morrow,  their  disciples  found  them  in  this 
condition  and  said,  '  Our  masters,  the  time  for 
the  morning  meal  has  arrived.' "  So  the  parody 
follows  the  service  line  by  line,  with  witty  flashes 
and  amazingly  clover  burlesque.  Take  the  follow- 
ing :  "  R.  Cask  said,  for  seventy  years  I  have  re- 
joiced on  Purim,  but  I  was  never  in  a  position 
to  prove  that  the  feasting  should  last  for  three 
days  and  three  nights  until  R.  Old  Wine  taught : 
It  is  written  '  from  grief  to  joy  and  from  mourn- 
ing to  holiday'  (Esther  ix.  22);  now,  just  as  the 
grief  and  fasting  lasted  for  three  days,  so  the 
joy  and  merry-making  must  last  for  three  days. 


PURIM   PARODIES  37 

R.  Pitcher  said  seven  days,  for  the  days  of  mourn- 
ing (for  the  dead)  continue  for  seven  days.  The 
wise  men  say  nothing,  but  eat  and  drink  until 
the  Messiah  comes."  The  Passover  service  con- 
cludes, "  Next  year  we  hope  to  be  in  Jerusalem  ; " 
the  parody,  with  very  slight  alteration  of  the 
Hebrew,  closes  with  the  aspiration,  "Next  year 
we  hope  to  drink  double." 

These  specimens  must  suffice.  Just  as  the 
Passover  service  is  the  Seder  for  lei  shimmurim 
(Night  of  Watching),  the  parody  is  termed  the 
Seder  for  lei  shiccurim  ("  Order  of  Service  for  the 
Night  of  Drunkenness ").  Besides  these  paro- 
dies of  the  Seder  there  are  imitations  of  the 
Mishnah  described  as  Tractate  Purim.  "On  the 
eve  of  the  14th  Nisan,  we  must  remove  all  leaven 
from  our  houses" — so  runs  the  opening  passage 
of  the  Mishnah  Pesachim.  "On  the  eve  of  the 
14th  Adar  we  must  remove  all  water  from  our 
houses,"  is  the  version  of  the  parodist.  It  is  a 
prime  sin  to  drink  water  on  Purim.  If  it  rains 
it  is  an  omen  of  evil  to  the  world,  but  woe  betide 
the  unfortunate  Israelite  who  fails  to  shut  his 
windows  to  exclude  the  untimely  showers.  One 
other  quotation  from  the  comic  Mishnah  must 
end  our  selection.  In  the  Book  of  Proverbs 
(xxxi.  G)  occurs  the  text,  "  Give  strong  drink  unto 
him  that  is  ready  to  perish,"  but  the  word  trans- 
lated "  ready  to  perish  "  may  also  be  rendered  "  to 
him  that  is  losing."  Several  Rabbis,  in  the  parody, 
were  sitting  over  their  wine  and  indulging  in  a 
game  of  dice  for  the  whole  night  long,  until  their 


38  PURIM  PARODIES 

disciples  came  and  said :  "  Venerable  masters !  the 
time  has  come  for  you  to  perform  your  Purim  duties 
and  to  drink  the  apportioned  quantity  of  wine." 
One  of  the  company  did  not  partake,  because  he 
was  downcast  at  the  loss  of  his  money  which  had 
occurred  during  the  play.  Thereupon  one  of  his 
friends  remarked  that  when  he  lost  money  on 
Purim  he  only  drank  the  deeper,  because  it  is 
written,  "Give  strong  drink  to  the  man  who  is 
losing." 

A  word  of  warning  is  perhaps  necessary.  It 
may  be  hastily  inferred  from  the  passages  given 
above,  as  well  as  from  others  perforce  omitted, 
that  medieval  Jews  were  intemperate  and  their 
Rabbis  bon-vivants.  No  inference  could  be  more 
false  or  ludicrous.  The  whole  point  of  the  cari- 
cature is  that  it  is  addressed  to  temperate  men, 
and  the  fun  derives  from  the  ascription  of  rollick- 
ing winebibbing  to  men  who  taught,  both  by 
precept  and  example,  the  lesson,  not  of  total 
abstinence,  but  of  moderation  and  temperance  in 
its  true  sense. 

Of  the  writers  of  the  parodies,  some  were  learned, 
more  of  them  witty,  most  of  them  reverential. 
We  cannot  altogether  justify  them;  all  carnivals 
tend  to  excess.  Why,  then,  has  it  been  thought 
necessary  to  describe  these  parodies,  to  quote  some 
few  extracts  from  them,  and  to  include  them  in 
this  series  of  Festival  Studies?  Because,  without 
reference  to  them  a  whole  aspect  of  the  Jewish 
character  would  be  missed,  and  an  incomplete 
picture  presented.     For  these  parodies  are  in  no 


PURIM   PARODIES  39 

sense  vulgar  or  coarse.  There  is  not  a  word  in 
them  for  which  we  need  blush,  though  much  in 
them  surprises  and  offends  our  taste.  They  show 
us  the  Jew  so  absorbed  in  Judaism  that  his  wit 
assumes  the  shape  of  imitation,  that  supreme  form 
of  flattery.  He  imitates  what  he  knows  and  likes 
best  when  he  wishes  to  amuse  himself  and  be 
happy.  Whether  at  the  bottom  of  it  all  there 
lies  a  deep-seated  critical  attitude,  a  lack  of  intel- 
lectual reverence,  is  a  possible  question  to  raise. 
What  is  certain  is  that  there  was  no  religious 
irreverence ;  at  most  it  was  the  disrespect  of 
familiarity,  a  disrespect  which  is  not  easily  dis- 
tinguishable from  warm  affection.  If  we  are  less 
able  to  see  this,  it  may  be  because,  as  Brutus 
said  to  Lucilius  ("Julius  Caesar,"  iv.  2): — 

"  When  love  begins  to  sicken  and  decay, 
It  useth  an  enforced  ceremony  ; 
There  are  no  tricks  in  plain  and  simple  faith." 

It  may  even  be  that  our  present  ccremonious- 
ness  is  nearer  to  irreverence  than  was  the  easy 
familiarity  of  the  past.  But  I  am  explaining  not 
justifying.  I  would  not  wish  the  old  uncere- 
moniousness back. 


VII 

ART  ON  THE  SEDER-TABLE 

The  barest  Seder-table  is  beautiful  on  the  Pass- 
over eve ;  it  may  be  poor,  but  it  cannot  be 
mean.  Beauty  is  inherent  in  the  Seder  service, 
and  though  the  charm  may  be  homely,  its  home- 
liness is  necessarily  graceful.  But  it  is  neverthe- 
less strange  and  regrettable  that  we  no  longer 
add  to  the  spiritual  charm  of  the  Seder  an 
artistic  beauty  also.  The  fact  is  strange  and 
regrettable.  Strange,  because  the  tendency  of 
modern  fashion  is  to  improve  and  elaborate  the 
table  appointments  used  at  everyday  meals. 
Regrettable,  because  we  can  never  develop  a 
Jewish  decorative  art  unless  there  is  regenerated 
a  wide  demand  for  objects  of  beauty,  designed 
for  such  occasions  of  domestic  religion  as  the 
Seder  night. 

Of  old,  Jewish  taste  was  seen  at  its  best  on 
the  Passover  eve.  Not  only  was  this  taste  shown 
in  the  making  of  artistic  things,  but  also  in  their 
selection.  There  have  come  down  to  us  many 
beautiful  relics  which  were  not  made  by  Jews, 
but  the  selection  and  treasuring  of  these  beauti- 
ful things  by  Jews  afford  collateral  evidence  that 
our  medieval   brethren   often   had    true    artistic 


ART  ON   THE   SEDER-TABLE  41 

feeling.     And  a  good  many  of  the  objects  were 
actually  the  work  of  Jewish  hands. 

In  the  first  centuries,  Jews  followed  the  Grreco- 
Roman  fashion  of  freemen,  reclining  on  couches 
at  their  more  important  meals.  Hence  the  use 
in  more  recent  times  of  cushions  for,  at  least, 
the  "  master  of  the  house,"  on  the  Passover  eve 
— the  festival  of  freedom.  In  the  Benguiat  col- 
lection, now  in  the  National  Museum,  Washington, 
there  are  two  such  cushions,  made  in  Samacor 
(Bulgaria)  in  the  sixteenth  century.  The  material, 
as  described  by  Drs.  C.  Adler  and  J.  M.  Casanowicz, 
is  green  silk,  which  is  richly  embroidered  in  gold. 
It  may  be  pointed  out  that  in  the  designs  of 
these  objects  there  is  nothing  specifically  Paschal. 
It  often  happened  that  beautiful  things  were 
reserved  and  appropriated  for  certain  specific  oc- 
casions, and  only  thus  became  closely  associated 
with  those  occasions.  The  medieval  Jew  acquired 
some  beautiful  brocade  or  embroidery,  and  set 
it  aside  for  the  Seder  night.  A  similar  remark 
applies  to  the  ewer  and  basin  of  brass  repousse 
and  chased  work  assigned  in  the  Benguiat  collec- 
tion for  Seder  use.  Some  of  the  table-covers, 
the  table  -  centres,  the  covers  for  unleavened 
cakes  and  bitter  herbs,  found  in  various  collec- 
tions, belong  to  the  same  category ;  but  others 
were  distinctly  made  for  Passover.  Some  of 
these  table-centres  (especially  those  of  German 
provenance)  are  adorned  with  scenes  from  the 
story  of  the  Exodus  or  from  the  ceremonies  of 
the  Seder.     On  some,  again,  the  Festival  Sancti- 


42  ART   ON   THE  SEDER-TABLE 

fication  (Kiddush)  is  inscribed.  Specific  covers 
for  the  cakes  and  herbs  are  found  chiefly  in 
Germany  and  the  Levant.  They  are  of  different 
materials,  linen  and  silk  being  naturally  chosen. 
The  Benguiat  collection  contains  a  very  fine  speci- 
men. It  is  of  purple-coloured  silk,  embroidered 
in  silver  and  gold,  and  was  made  in  Chios  (Asia 
Minor)  in  the  eighteenth  century.  It  measures 
twenty-one  by  nineteen  inches,  and  was  used  as 
a  cover  for  the  bitter  herbs.  In  South  Germany 
we  find  many  towel-shaped  covers  for  the  un- 
leavened cakes;  emblems  from  Adam  and  Eve 
down  to  the  building  of  the  Temple  are  figured 
thereon.  An  interesting  inscription  on  some 
of  these  is  the  name  of  the  Jewess  who  worked 
the  embroidery.  The  only  Seder-cover  shown 
at  the  Anglo-Jewish  Exhibition  was  of  German 
origin. 

More  popular  were  the  Seder  dishes.  Of  these 
many  fine  examples  are  extant  in  public  and  pri- 
vate collections.  They  were  made  everywhere,  and 
of  all  materials — glass,  china,  majolica,  silver  and 
gold,  pewter.  The  Hamburg  Museum  possesses 
one  of  Persian  style  (date,  1776).  Round  the 
outer  margin  is  inscribed  the  rhymed  summary 
of  the  Seder  service  ;  on  the  inside  margin  are,  in 
Hebrew,  the  words :  "  He  who  relates  much  con- 
cerning the  Exodus  is  praiseworthy."  One  pictured 
by  Dr.  Frauberger  is  probably  Dutch.  It  is  made 
of  pewter,  richly  inlaid  with  silver  chasings  and 
borders.  Here,  again,  we  find  the  rhymed  sum- 
mary, but  much  more.     The  "four  sons"  of  the 


ART  ON  THE   SEDER-TABLE  43 

Seder  are  pictured,  and  on  the  margin  are  a 
series  of  grotesques  partly  derived  from  the 
Chad  Gadya.  Another,  which  belonged  to  Mr. 
F.  D.  Mocatta  (pictured  by  Mr.  F.  Haes),  is  of 
faience  work,  and  contains  the  Kiddush  and  the 
rhymed  summary  with  vignettes.  Yet  another 
fine  specimen  (containing  the  same  inscriptions 
as  last  described  and  also  four  vignettes  of 
scenes  in  the  Seder  service)  is  preserved  at 
Washington.  It  was  "  made  by  Jews  of  Spain 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  glazed  in  Italy  in 
the  sixteenth  century." 

Special  mention  must  be  made  of  a  Passover 
dish  exhibited  at  the  Albert  Hall  by  Madame 
Hartog  (Cat.  No.  1602).  The  dish  was  engraved 
by  the  donor,  who  presented  it  as  a  wedding  gift 
to  the  exhibitor's  grandmother,  120  years  before 
1887,  the  date  of  the  Albert  Hall  Exhibition.  In 
an  illuminated  Haggadah  (service  for  the  Passover 
eve)  in  the  British  Museum  (Add.  27,210)  an  in- 
scription shows  that  this  was  also  a  wedding  gift. 
Jewish  art  would  be  much  encouraged  were  such 
presents  more  usual  nowadays.  An  allusion  has 
just  been  made  to  the  illuminated  Haggadahs, 
which  constitute  so  important  an  element  in  the 
art  of  the  Seder-table.  From  the  rough  pen-and- 
ink  sketches  found  in  Geniza  fragments  of  the 
Haggadah  at  Cambridge,  down  to  the  latest  quaint 
woodcuts  of  cheap  modern  editions,  the  Seder 
service  has  been  pictorially  embellished  through- 
out the  ages.  As  early  as  1526  (Prague)  we  have 
printed  editions  containing   woodcuts.     Long   be- 


44  ART   ON  THE  SEDER-TABLE 

fore  and  long  after  that  date  illuminated  manu- 
scripts of  the  Haggadah  abound,  the  finest  being 
the  Crawford  MS.  (still  awaiting  publication  from 
Mr.  F.  Haes's  magnificent  photographs)  and  the 
Haggadah  of  Sarajevo  (edited  with  many  fine  illus- 
trations by  Muller,  Schlosser,  and  Kaufmann, 
Vienna  1898).  The  last-named  work  may  be 
commended  to  those  who  are  in  search  of  an 
elegant  and  appropriate  wedding-gift.  Some  good 
specimens  of  Haggadah  illustration  will  be  found 
in  the  Jewish  Encyclopedia,  vol.  vi.,  pp.  143  on- 
wards. The  frontispiece  of  that  volume  is  derived 
from  the  Sarajevo  Haggadah,  which  latter  (like 
the  Crawford)  is,  I  am  strongly  convinced,  of 
French  origin. 

Some  of  the  other  artistic  ornaments  of  the 
Seder-table  have  still  to  be  noted.  Dishes  and 
bowls  for  holding  the  bitter  herbs  are  fairly 
common.  One  in  the  Benguiat  collection  is  of 
chased  brass-work,  made  in  Venice  in  the  fifteenth 
century.  Another  (Frauberger)  is  a  splendid  bowl 
with  four  feet,  elaborately  chased.  One  exhibited 
at  the  Albert  Hall  is  made  of  Jerusalem  (black 
Moabite)  stone.  "This  stone,"  as  we  are  re- 
minded in  J.  Jacobs  and  L.  Wolfs  Catalogue 
of  the  Anglo-Jewish  Exhibition,  "  is  black  during 
the  day,  grey  at  night,  and  changes  to  blue  with 
red  spots  during  summer."  A  rarer  object  is  the 
Charoseth  wheel-barrow,  with  tongs,  a  form  which 
seems  restricted  to  Italy.  Enamelled  saucers 
with  silver  spoons,  are  oftener  found.  Antique 
china  cups  for  the  salt-water,  small  silver  stands 


ART  ON  THE   SEDER-TABLE  45 

for  the  roasted  eggs,  are,  naturally,  not  infrequent. 
Quite  uncommon  is  a  special  glass  and  plate 
for  counting  oil*  the  ten  plagues  from  the  wine 
cup.  The  specimen  in  the  Washington  Museum 
is  extremely  beautiful  and  might  be  copied  with 
advantage. 

The  art  of  the  Seder-table  perhaps  attains  its 
best  in  tho  wine  cups.  In  the  Benguiat  collection 
are  a  set  of  twelve  wine  glasses  to  be  used  by  the 
participants  in  the  Passover  service.  They  are 
of  cut  glass  with  gilded  rims,  and  are  engraved 
with  scenes  from  human  life ;  one  represents  a 
woman  at  tho  loom,  another  a  sailing  vessel, 
others  a  rural  idyll,  a  harvesting  scene,  a  coun- 
try homestead,  a  landscape,  a  chariot  race,  a  house 
with  its  inhabitants,  a  hunting  scene.  (Hunting 
scenes  are  a  popular  illustration  in  the  illuminated 
Ha^cradahs).  This  set  was  made  in  the  seventeenth 
century;  the  height  of  each  glass  is  4£  inches, 
diameter  1§  inches.  Many  Jewish  families  reserve 
some  of  their  glass  and  china  solely  for  Passover 
use,  but  such  a  brilliant  set  as  this  could  scarcely 
be  matched.  Of  the  metal  wine  cups  it  is  un- 
necessary to  speak.  Beautiful  specimens  abound 
in  all  metals  and  all  shapes,  circular,  hexagonal, 
mug-shaped  with  covers,  and  so  forth.  The 
chasing  and  designs  are  often  elaborate.  Allu- 
sion may  be  made  to  two  rarities.  The  cup  of 
Elijah  is  sometimes  made  double,  one  within  the 
other.  The  motive  for  this,  I  fancy,  must  be 
that  the  Elijah  cup  was  designed  for  a  twofold 
purpose:    (<x)  it   is   for   Elijah,   expected   on   the 


46  ART   ON   THE   SEDER-TABLE 

Passover  eve ;  (b)  it  is  for  any  unexpected  guest. 
Hence  the  cup  may  have  been  made  double  to 
allow  that,  in  emergency  (6),  purpose  [a)  might 
still  be  provided  for.  Another  curiosity  may  be 
seen  in  the  Kunstgewerbe  Museum,  Dusseldorf. 
This  cup  has  four  sets  of  notches  on  the  margin : 
one  notch,  two  notches,  three  notches,  four  notches. 
Evidently  the  celebrant  of  the  Seder  was  expected 
to  turn  the  cup  after  each  use  of  it,  and  the  notches 
enabled  him  to  keep  record  of  the  "four  cups," 
of  which  he  (like  all  present)  had  to  partake. 
Finally,  an  artistic  object  often  found  on  the 
Seder-table  is  the  illuminated  Omer-Book.  "Count- 
ing the  Omer"  (Leviticus  xxiii.  15)  begins  on  the 
second  night  of  the  Passover,  and,  as  the  counting 
is  often  done  at  the  Seder,  such  beautifully  orna- 
mented little  scrolls  appeared  in  some  medieval 
homes  on  the  Passover. 

What  is  the  moral  of  it  all  ?  The  olden  Jews 
understood  better  than  we  do  two  important 
things.  First,  sameness  means  loss  of  interest. 
They  reserved  specific  objects  of  beauty  and 
utility  for  specific  occasions,  and  thus  heightened 
the  interest  which  those  occasions  aroused  as 
they  came  round  in  annual  course.  Secondly, 
they  realised  that  to  honour  God  one  must 
sometimes  spend  one's  substance.  Social  festivi- 
ties need  not,  should  not,  absorb  all  our 
means.  Our  home  religion  cries  aloud  for  its 
share.  True  it  is  that  warm-hearted  religion  is 
quite  consistent  with  a  simple,  unadorned  Seder- 
table.     But  what   is  not   consistent   is   that  we 


ART   ON   THE  SEDER-TABLE  47 

should   reserve   all  our  simple  unadornnient  for 
the  Seder-table. 

"  Honour  the  Lord  with  thy  substance, 
And  with  the  first  fruits  of  thine  increase." 

(Proverbs  iii.  9.) 

Each  Jew,  according  to  the  gift  of  his  hand, 
should  beautify  the  table  whereat  he  recites  with 
recurrent  joy  the  moving  story  of  God's  love  for 
our  fathers  and  for  us. 


VIII 

A  UNIQUE  HAGGADAH  PICTURE 

One  of  the  pictures  in  the  richly  illuminated 
Haggadah  of  Sarajevo  gives  a  real  shock  to  Jewish 
susceptibilities.  In  what  Prof.  Kaufrnann  regarded 
as  the  "  German "  type  of  Haggadah  illustrations, 
the  historical  pictures  begin  with  the  patriarch 
Abraham.  This  is  a  natural  starting-point.  The 
whole  story  of  the  servitude  in  Eygpt  and  the 
consequent  rescue  depends,  in  the  Bible,  on  the 
covenant  between  God  and  Abraham. 

But  in  the  Sarajevo  Haggadah,  which  shows 
"  Spanish "  influence,  the  historical  series  starts 
earlier.  The  first  two  folios  represent  scenes  from 
the  biblical  narrative  of  the  creation.  The  explan- 
ation of  this  retrogression  in  time  has  been  easily 
found.  The  Haggadah  opens  with  the  Festival  Sanc- 
tification  (Kiddush),  and  naturally  the  Sabbath 
form  of  the  sanctification  is  also  included.  Now, 
the  initial  paragraph  of  the  Kiddush  is  a  literal 
quotation  from  Genesis  i.  31— ii.  3:  "The  Sixth 
Day ;  thus  the  heavens  and  earth  were  finished  and 
all  their  host,"  and  so  forth.  This  passage  might 
well  offer  a  direct  suggestion  to  an  artist  to  depict 
the  stages  of  the  six  days'  creation,  culminating  in 
the  Sabbath  Day  of  Rest. 

J  48 


A  UNIQUE   HAGGADAH   PICTURE    40 

The  artist  has  distributed  the  events  of  seven 
days  into  eight  scenes,  arranged  in  two  sets  of  four 
each.  The  first  depicts  chaos ;  the  Spirit  of  God 
hovers  as  a  golden  flame,  rising  from  out  primeval 
waters.  Second  comes  the  separation  between  light 
and  darkness.  Under  a  round  arch,  the  space  is 
divided  into  two  halves  by  a  vertical  line,  to  the 
left  of  which  a  deep  black  patch  indicates  the  dark- 
ness, while  to  the  right  a  far  paler  patch  repre- 
sents the  light.  In  the  third  picture  (Second  Day) 
the  separation  between  the  waters  is  portrayed ; 
from  the  sky  there  stream  downwards  bright  rays, 
emblematic,  doubtless,  of  the  Divine  influence. 
The  fourth  picture  (concluding  the  first  folio,  and 
representing  the  work  of  the  Third  Day)  repeats, 
as  do  the  sixth  and  seventh  pictures,  these 
streaming  rays  which  descend  from  above  in  the 
shape  of  a  spreading  cone.  In  this  fourth  picture, 
we  are  shown  the  separation  of  water  from  land, 
the  earth  bristling  with  trees  and  shrubs.  Fifthly, 
we  have  the  work  of  the  Fourth  Day ;  the  sun  and 
moon  and  stars  appear  above  the  picture  proper, 
and  arc  repeated  in  the  sixth  picture  (Fifth  Day). 
Birds  are  at  the  top  of  the  round  globe,  fish  at  the 
bottom,  while  between  are  the  wild  beasts  amid 
which  a  lion  oocupies  a  prominent  place.  The 
seventh  picture  (Sixth  Day)  repeats  several  of 
the  previous  details,  but  adds  the  creation  of 
man,  a  somewhat  dwarfed  figure.  Finally,  in  an 
eighth  picture,  appears  a  unique  illustration — alto- 
gether unparalleled,  so  far  as  I  know,  in  Jewish 
manuscripts,  though  Dr.  R.  Gottheil  has  recently 

D 


50    A   UNIQUE   HAGGADAH   PICTURE 

suggested  a  parallel.  In  the  picture  to  which  I 
refer  we  see  a  human  figure,  young  and  beard- 
less, clothed  in  an  ample  robe,  hooded  and  red. 
The  figure  is  seated  in  repose  under  a  trefoil 
canopy — and  this  figure  is  apparently  meant  to 
represent  God.  The  editors  of  the  Sarajevo  Hag- 
gadah  feel  no  doubt  whatever  that  such  is  the 
artist's  intention. 

If  so,  the  picture  is  unique,  or  at  all  events  a 
great  rarity,  and  proves  conclusively  one  of  two 
things :  (a)  The  artist  was  a  Christian,  or,  more 
probably,  (6)  the  artist  was  a  Jew  copying  slavishly 
a  Christian  model,  the  un-Jewish  character  of 
which  was,  for  some  reason,  not  perceived  by 
him.  It  cannot  be  argued,  as  Prof.  D.  H.  Muller 
seems  to  argue,  that  the  picture  is  quite  un- 
christian in  origin  because  God,  in  Christian  art, 
appears  as  an  old,  bearded  man.  For  though 
this  is  true  of  developed  Christian  art,  as  we  are 
now  most  familiar  with  it,  it  is  not  true  of  the 
more  primitive  Christian  types.  In  the  earliest 
Christian  art,  as  seen  in  the  Roman  catacombs, 
no  attempt  was  made  to  represent  God  in  full 
human  shape.  He  appears  as  a  hand  holding  out 
to  Moses  the  two  Tables  of  Stone.  This — as  a 
mere  figure  of  speech — may  be  found  also  in  the 
Midrash.  It  is  reproduced  in  a  popular,  but  re- 
grettable, poem  still  recited  in  many  synagogues 
on  Simchath  Torah.  It  was  not  till  the  age  of 
Charlemagne  that  Christian  artists  became  profuse 
in  their  pictures  of  God  as  a  full  human  figure. 
The  artists  adopted  two  opposite  plans.    To  express 


A   UNIQUE   HAGGADAH   PICTURE    51 

the  Divine  unchangeableness,  they  showed  God 
either  as  a  beardless  youth — perennially  young ; 
or  as  an  old  man,  with  virile  strength  and  un- 
impaired  vigour.  "  They  "  (the  scriptural  writers), 
"  saw  in  Thee  both  age  and  youth,  Thy  hair  now 
grey,  now  black."  So  runs  a  famous  line  in  the 
Hebrew  "  Hymn  of  Glory."  The  whole  hymn  is 
built  up  of  sensuous  images,  to  which  a  mystic 
turn  is  given.  The  "  Hymn  of  Glory "  is  a  tine 
poem,  and  the  author  guards  against  all  possible 
misapprehension  by  the  emphatic  caution :  "  They 
figured  Thee  in  a  multitude  of  visions,  yet  behold 
Thou  art  One  under  all  images."  Still,  marvellously 
powerful  as  the  "  Hymn  of  Glory  "  is,  it  is  impos- 
sible, from  a  Jewish  standpoint,  not  to  prefer  the 
"  Hymn  of  Unity  "  for  the  third  day  of  the  week, 
with  its  uncompromising,  completely  Jewish  pro- 
test :  "  On  Thee  there  falls  nor  age  nor  youth ;  nor 
grey  hairs  nor  black  tresses."  It  is  unnecessary  to 
trace  the  further  development  of  the  pictorial 
representation  of  God  in  later  Christian  art. 
Briefly  put,  the  -history  was  this :  In  the  fifteenth 
century  pictures  of  God  as  a  bearded  old  man, 
finally  replace  the  beardless,  youthful  types.  The 
figures  usually  wear  the  triple  Papal  crown — a 
quaint  detail !  Italy,  in  the  Renaissance  era,  shows 
us  every  phase  of  the  a-sthetie  struggle.  We  see 
the  symbolical  hand,  we  see  the  three  persons  of 
the  Trinity  as  figures  of  equal  age.  God  the 
Father  often,  again,  assumes  a  small  form  hidden 
behind  clouds;  sometimes  the  figure  is  painted 
off  the   main   picture  to   imply    distance.     Then 


52    A  UNIQUE  HAGGADAH  PICTURE 

we  reach  Michelangelo's  noble  works.  The  awe, 
the  majesty  of  deity,  are  expressed  in  a  muscular, 
large-limbed,  giant  stature ;  a  wildly-flowing  beard 
conveys  the  impression  of  cosmic  movement. 
Raphael,  Titian,  and,  above  all,  Albrecht  Dtirer, 
developed  and  modified  Michelangelo's  ideals,  ex- 
celling him  in  serenity,  but  never  in  sublimity. 

Summing  up  the  influence  of  these  vain,  if 
beautiful,  attempts  to  make  the  invisible  visible, 
to  compress  into  finite  bounds  the  infinite,  incor- 
poreal Spirit — can  it  be  doubted  that  Judaism 
has  been  the  better,  the  purer,  without  such  futil- 
ities ?  To  picture  God  as  man  lowers  both.  On 
the  one  hand,  man  cannot  hope  to  perfect  in  him- 
self the  manly  type  if  God  and  not  man  is  the 
perfection  of  that  type.  On  the  other  hand,  God 
loses  all  that  makes  Him  God,  if  He  is  after  all 
representable  as  perfect  man.  "  God  is  not  man," 
then  let  art  and  poetry  beware  of  suggesting 
such  a  false  identification.  It  is  not  the  least 
of  our  many  obligations  to  Maimonides  that  he 
so  unswervingly  re-inforced  in  the  Middle  Ages 
the  prophetic  conception  of  God  as  a  pure  Spirit. 
The  anthropomorphic  language  of  Scripture  and 
Midrash  were,  once  for  all,  allegorised  away  for  us 
by  the  Sage  of  Cairo. 

Hence,  it  is  so  strange,  so  intolerable,  to  find  in 
the  Sarajevo  Haggadah  the  picture  which  is  the 
subject  of  these  lines.  In  Jewish  illuminated 
manuscripts,  as  a  rule,  God  is  altogether  omitted 
by  the  artist.  Perilously  near  to  the  sensuousness 
of  the  Sarajevo  artist  is,  at  first  sight,  the  work  of 


A  UNIQUE   HAGGADAH   PICTURE    53 

another  illuminator  of  the  Haggadah,  described  by 
M.  Schwab.  In  this  manuscript  an  "  outstretched 
arm  "  is  depicted.  The  hand  firmly  clasps  a  sword. 
M.  Schwab  apparently  cites  Exodus  vi.  7  in  ex- 
planation, but  the  artist  cannot  have  meant  to 
show  us  God's  arm.  It  is  an  angel's  arm  that  he 
has  drawn,  for  in  one  of  the  three  repetitions  of 
this  picture,  in  the  same  Haggadah,  the  sworded 
arm  is  clearly  held  over  a  representation  of  the 
city  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  reference  must  be,  not 
to  Exodus,  but  to  I.  Chronicles  xxi.  16.  In  the 
Sarajevo  Haggadah  itself,  the  artist  everywhere 
(except  in  the  case  of  the  "  Sabbath  Rest "),  avoids 
any  representation  of  God.  In  Abraham's  offering 
we  see  a  hand  in  the  sky,  but,  though  in  Christian 
art,  until  the  eleventh  century,  the  hand  typified 
God,  the  intention,  probably,  is  here  to  show  us 
the  hand  of  the  angel  who  intervenes  in  Genesis 
xxii.  In  the  burning  bush  we  see  merely  angelic 
wings,  shimmering  with  gold,  while  death  is  in- 
flicted on  the  first-born  of  Egypt  by  a  super- 
natural influence  represented  by  rays.  In  the 
Revelation  on  Mount  Sinai,  Moses  is  the  main 
figure,  and  we  see  nothing  in  the  heavens  but  a 
horn,  which  projects  from  the  clouds.  All  these 
features  of  the  Sarajevo  Haggadah  strengthen  the 
view  that  only  in  the  Creation  series — a  series 
quite  unusual  in  Jewish  MSS. — a  direct  Christian 
model  was  followed  in  sheer  inadvertence. 

In  a  Dutch  MS.  of  the  Haggadah — illuminated 
in  the  eighteenth  century — we  have  the  only  set  of 
illustrations  known  to  me  in  which  tho  scenes  of 


54    A  UNIQUE  HAGGADAH   PICTURE 

the  Chad  Gadya  are  depicted.  God  slays  death, 
and  the  artist  shows  us  a  skeleton  prone  under  a 
vivid  flash  of  forked  lightning.  In  several  MSS. 
the  scene  of  the  Sinaitic  Revelation  is  adorned 
above  with  the  first  Hebrew  word  (anochi)  of 
the  Decalogue  on  the  concave  surface  of  a  semi- 
circular halo.  Comparable  with  this  is  the 
Tetragrammaton  in  a  complete  halo  (sometimes 
re-inclosed  within  a  triangle)  which  frequently 
occurs  in  mural  Church  paintings,  and  in  Chris- 
tian art  generally. 

The  Jewish  record  is  thus,  on  the  whole,  a  good 
one.  But  we  must  do  more  than  maintain  our 
record.  We  must  become,  in  this  respect,  even 
more  rigid  Puritans  than  we  have  been  in  the 
past.  In  particular,  we  must  refuse  to  admit 
figures  of  any  kind  whatsoever  into  our  synagogue 
decoration,  lest  our  artists  be  tempted  to  give  first 
symbolical,  and,  finally,  sensuous  hints  of  the 
Creator.  The  danger  is  not  only  from  the  artistic 
side.  At  the  present  moment  the  atmosphere  of 
religious  thought  is  tainted  with  all  sorts  of  scien- 
tific and  philosophical  shams,  which  would  per- 
suade us  that  there  are  natural  and  metaphysical 
justifications  for  impairing  the  spirituality  of 
God.  It  was  not  easy  to  arrive  at  the  abstract 
conception  of  the  Divine  spirituality,  and  to 
retain  the  spiritual  kinship  between  God  and 
man  while  discarding  all  human  attributes  from 
our  Father  in  Heaven.  Judaism,  alone,  among 
the  religions  prevalent  in  Europe,  did  arrive  at 
this  conception,   and  Judaism    must   permit  no 


A  UNIQUE   HAGGADAH   PICTURE     55 

tampering  with  its  cardinal  principles — the  unity 
and  spirituality  of  God.  In  this  respect,  at  least, 
Judaism  represents  the  highest  ideal  attained  by 
religion.  Let  us  see  to  it  that  we  maintain 
the  ideal  in  untarnished  simplicity.  "Ye  saw 
no  manner  of  form  when  God  spake  unto  you  in 
Horeb  "  fDeut.  iv.  15). 


IX 

THE  SUCCAH   OF  THE  BIBLE 

The  Succah  of  the  Bible  was  simply  a  rude  erec- 
tion intended  for  watchmen  in  gardens  and  vine- 
yards, for  soldiers  in  war,  for  cattle,  and  even  as  a 
temporary  protection  against  the  sun  for  workers 
in  the  fields.  It  was  of  the  same  type  as  the  little 
lodge  erected  by  the  modern  fellaheen  in  Palestine. 
Some  sticks  or  tree  trunks,  arranged  mostly  as  a 
tripod  but  sometimes  as  a  square,  and  covered 
with  an  old  mat  as  an  awning,  constitute,  at  the 
present  day,  frail  sleeping  apartments  for  guardians 
against  thieves  and  jackals. 

The  Succah  of  the  Hebrews  had,  however,  a  roof 
of  branches.  Jonah  exceptionally  used  a  hikayon 
("gourd"),  really  the  Egyptian  hiki.  We  have 
full  information  that,  at  all  events,  at  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles,  the  Jews  gathered  olive  branches, 
pine  branches,  palms,  and  myrtles  to  serve  as 
coverings  for  their  temporary  huts.  This  was  done 
after  the  exile  (Nehemiah  viii.  8),  and  was  long 
continued.  In  Talmud  times  vines  were  used,  but 
only  when  severed  from  the  growing  stems,  or 
straw,  which  was  taken  from  the  wheat  and  barley 
granaries.  From  the  vines  were  still  hanging 
clusters  of  grapes,  and  so,  too,  when  other  fruit- 

66 


THE   SUCCAH   OF   THE   BIBLE        57 

trees  were  utilised,  the  boughs,  though  dead,  re- 
tained their  pundent  burdens.  One  can  easily 
understand  how  these  last  were  procured,  but 
whence  did  Nehemiah's  contemporaries  obtain 
their  material  ?  They  required  a  good  deal.  They 
set  the  huts  on  the  roofs  of  their  houses,  in  the 
courts,  in  the  precincts  of  the  Temple,  and  in  the 
open  spaces  near  two  of  the  city  gates. 

Nehemiah  tells  us  that  the  people  went  to  the 
"  Mount "  for  their  trees.  The  Mount  was  clearly 
Olivet.  But  what  a  falling-off  is  there!  The 
mountain,  which  rises  gloriously  to  the  east  of 
Jerusalem,  is  now  almost  bare  of  trees.  Here  and 
there  may  be  seen  a  fine  old  olive,  but  only  at  the 
deeper  slope  leading  to  the  northernmost  height 
do  "  the  trees  spread  into  anything  like  a  forest." 
As  to  the  palms,  they  never  can  have  grown  pro- 
fusely on  the  Judean  hills,  which  are  too  cold  to 
nurture  this  tropical  plant.  There  may  have  been 
palms  in  gardens,  but  there  are  no  traces  of  these 
now.  Even  Jericho,  the  "  City  of  Palms,"  has 
scarcely  a  tree  which  has  not  been  freshly  planted 
within  the  past  generation.  There  are  still,  how- 
ever, a  good  many  palms  in  the  maritime  lowlands, 
and  it  may  be  that,  at  no  distant  date,  Palestinian 
palms  will  come  from  the  Jewish  colonies  in 
numbers  as  great  as  when  the  medieval  Christian 
pilgrim  from  the  Holy  Land  was  known  as  a 
"  Palmer."  In  the  valley  of  Hinnom,  according  to 
the  Mishnah,  there  were  indeed  a  few  Palm  trees 
called  Tsini.  To  return  to  the  contrast  between 
the  Olivet  of  the  past  and  of  to-day,  the  Mount, 


58        THE  SUCCAH   OF   THE   BIBLE 

with  the  two  gigantic  cedars  once  crowning  its 
summit,  under  which  the  pigeons  were  sold,  its 
dark  olive-yards,  its  masses  of  figs  and  pines  and 
myrtles,  must  have  been  a  favourite  pleasure 
ground.  Figs  and  myrtles  are  still  fairly  abund- 
ant, and  by  the  brook  Kedron  is  a  fine  group  of 
olives,  while  the  so-called  Garden  of  Gethsemane 
still  retains  eight  very  ancient  olive  trees,  their 
trunks  gnarled  and  their  foliage  scanty.  Though, 
then,  these  remains  still  recall  the  former  beauty 
of  the  mountain,  though  its  slopes  are  green  in 
the  spring  and  offer  a  pleasing  contrast  to  the 
stony  barrenness  of  the  other  hills,  yet  the  present 
state  well  illustrates  the  Jewish  legend  that  the 
Shechinah  (or  Divine  Glory)  when  it  left  the 
Temple  lingered  but  awhile  on  the  slopes  of  Olivet, 
and  then  flitted  away  to  the  wilderness. 

*'  When  the  Shechinah  from  that  erring  throng 
Alas  !  withdrew,  yet  tarried  in  the  track, 
As  one  who  ling'reth  on  the  threshold  long 
And  looketh  back. 

Then  step  by  step  in  that  reluctant  flight 

Approached  the  shadow  of  the  city  wall, 

And  lingered  yet  upon  the  mountain  height 
For  hoped  recall." 

Is  there  truth,  too,  in  the  final  hope  ? — 

"  Behold  Thou  comest  as  the  dawn  of  day  ! 

Shechinah  !  changeless,  to  illume  the  night ! 
0  Thou,  who  art  a  lamp  upon  the  way, 
Who  art  a  light !  " 

The  Succah,  type  of  God's  providence,  the  res- 
toration of  Israel  from  its  fallen  estate,  restrains 


THE   SUCCAH   OF  THE   BIBLE        59 

one  from  the  pessimism  which  the  present  pros- 
pect of  Olivet  induces.  But  when  the  Shechinah 
returns  to  Israel,  it  will  be  not  to  a  mountain 
on  a  local  site,  but  to  a  world  in  which,  by  the 
combined  effort  of  righteous  humanity,  every 
mountain  and  hill  shall  be  made  low,  and  rough 
places  plain,  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  shall  be 
revealed,  and  all  flesh  shall  see  it  together,  for  the 
mouth  of  the  Lord  hath  spoken  it  (Isaiah  xl.  4). 

There  is  a  famous  passage  in  Amos  (ix.  11) 
in  which  the  Succah  is  the  type  at  once  of 
Israel's  loneliness  and  of  God's  love.  This  utter- 
ance has  puzzled  the  commentators,  but  I  think 
that  I  can  explain  it  from  something  that  I  saw 
in  Judea.  "  In  that  day,"  says  Amos,  "  I  will 
raise  up  the  Succah  ('  tabernacle ')  of  David  that 
is  fallen  and  close  up  the  breaches  thereof." 
Now  it  does  seem  that  the  prophet  is  mixing 
his  figures.  As  Professor  Driver  remarks,  Amos 
first  speaks  of  a  Succah,  but  immediately,  by 
referring  to  the  "  breaches "  changes  the  figure 
to  a  fortress.  But  the  herdsman  of  Tekoa  may 
be  right  after  all.  In  the  vineyards,  besides  the 
temporary  hut  (succah),  was  constructed  the 
stone  tower  (migdal),  which  was  very  substantial. 
These  towers  were  preserved  from  season  to 
season,  and  were  used  as  storehouses.  Of  this 
kind  must  have  been  the  Succah  of  Gonesareth 
mentioned  in  the  Talmud,  intended  for  the  olive- 
yards.  That  it  was  strongly  made  is  clear  from 
the  fact  that  it  was  turned  to  permanent  domestic 
uses.     But  the  point  of  Amos's  metaphor  is  yet 


GO        THE   SUCCAH   OF   THE   BIBLE 

to  be  explained.     When  I  was  in  the  vineyard 
at   Moza,  near  Jerusalem,  I  was  shown  a  solid 
building  made  of  stone.    It  had  a  domed  roof, 
was   very  substantial,  yet   was   put   together  en- 
tirely without   mortar   or    cement   of  any  kind. 
You  see  everywhere  stone  huts  of  this  kind,  but 
the  one  I  examined  most  closely  recalled  to  me 
the  words  of  Amos.     For  this  large,  solid   stone 
hut   (which  cost  100  francs — a  large  sum  there) 
had   a  stone   staircase   running  up   the  outside. 
On    mounting    this,   one    came    to   the   roof,   on 
which  was  placed  a  genuine   Succah,  an  alcove 
covered  with  Arabian  vines,  poor  as  to  fruit,  but 
excellent  as  to  shade.     It  was  wonderful  to  note 
how  cool  this  was,  how  wide  the  prospect,  how 
admirable   a  look-out   for   a   watchman   by  day. 
At  night   the  lower   edifice   is   curiously  warm, 
and   is  a   fine  protection   against  the  heavy  dew 
and  frequent  cold.     I  think  that  Amos  had  just 
such  a  structure  in  mind  when  he  foretold  that 
God  would  raise  up  the  fallen  tabernacle  and  close 
up  the  breaches  thereof.  The  same  kind  of  structure 
throws  new  light  on  Isaiah  iv.  G,  as  the  reader  will 
easily  see   by  turning  up  the  passage.     So,  too, 
with  the  31st  Psalm.     God's   shining  face,  like 
brooding  wings,   shelters  the  faithful  from    the 
storm  of  human  passions,  as  in  a  Succah  from  the 
heat,  and  from  the  wind  and  rain  as  in  the  more 
solid  stone  covert  on  which  it  was  set. 

"  Oh,  how  great  is  Thy  goodness,  which  Thou  hast  laid  up 

for  them  that  fear  Thee. 
Which  Thou  hast  wrought  for  them  that  put  their  trust 

in  Thee,  before  the  suns  of  men. 


THE   SUCCAH   OF   THE   BIBLE        61 

In  the  covert  of  Thy  presence  .-halt  Thou  hide  them  from 

the  plotting*  of  man. 
Thou  shalt  keep  them  secretly  in  a  pavilion  (succah)  from 

the  strife  of  tongues  ! " 

The  "  Land "  indeed  throws  light  on  the 
"  Book." 

The  story  is  told  in  the  Talmud  of  a  voyage 
made  by  some  Rabbis  during  the  week  of  Taber- 
nacles. One  built  a  Succah  aloft  in  the  mast  of 
the  vessel,  and  another  laughed.  But  the  scoffer 
was  wrong,  for  the  strength  of  Judaism  lies  in  its 
power  to  rise  above  circumstance  and  to  trans- 
fer to  changed  sets  of  conditions  the  religious 
emotions  originally  aroused  in  altogether  differ- 
ent environments.  In  our  time,  the  Succah  is 
rapidly  becoming  a  mere  symbol.  Once  lived 
in,  the  Succah  is  now  mostly  an  ornament  of 
the  synagogue,  visited  at  most  once  for  a  brief 
space.  But  the  change  from  an  abode  to  an 
ornament  is  consistent  with  our  still  using  the 
symbol  as  an  expression  of  the  conviction  that 
God's  Providence  was  not  for  a  day  but  for  all 
time.  Jews  have  lived  in  towns  instead  of  tents 
for  nearly  twenty  centuries,  yet  amid  their  town- 
life  the  Succah  may  recall  them  to  bygone  days 
when  their  touch  was  closer  with  Nature  and 
Nature's  God. 

And  try  to  picture  the  sensations  of  settlers 
in  the  new  Jewish  agricultural  colonies  as  the 
Feast  of  Tabernacles  approaches.  They  are  re- 
newing history,  a  function  which  Jews  all  the 
world  over   are  called  upon  to   fulfil.     But  these 


62        THE   SUCCAH   OF   THE   BIBLE 

settlers  are  in  a  peculiarly  dramatic  situation. 
They  have  accomplished  their  new  exodus,  and 
strangers  under  strange  skies  in  Argentina  or 
strangers  still  in  a  land  once  the  home  of  their 
fathers,  they  must  hereafter  perform  a  pilgrimage 
towards  a  beckoning  land  of  promise.  In  their 
wilderness  they  live  in  booths  at  the  prescribed 
season  of  the  year,  confident  that  God  is  with 
them  still,  that  as  His  providence  sheltered  their 
fathers  so  will  it  shelter  them  now.  To  us, 
also,  the  symbolical  Succah  may  convey  the 
same  lesson,  impart  the  same  hope. 


SOME   SUCCAHS   I   HAVE   KNOWN 

My  earliest  Succah  was  ray  mother's.  In  those 
days — how  many  years  ago  I  do  not  care  to 
count ! — my  summer  holiday  lasted  exactly  nine 
days  a  year.  We  needed  no  train  to  take  us  to 
our  country  destination — we  just  stepped  into 
our  little  city  garden.  In  brief,  our  one  and  only 
annual  outing  was  spent  in  our  Succah,  and  we 
young  boys  and  girls  enjoyed  our  change  of  scene 
far  more  than  I  have  relished  longer  and  more 
distant  excursions  in  recent  years.  It  has  been 
said  that  the  pleasures  we  make  for  ourselves  are 
fuller  and  fairer  than  the  pleasures  which  are 
given  to  us.  Perhaps  this  is  why  we  loved  our 
Succah — for  we  made  it  ourselves.  We  did  not 
employ  a  professional  carpenter  to  put  in  a  single 
nail,  or  plane  a  single  beam.  We  bought  rough 
logs  and  boards  at  the  city  timber  yard,  which 
was  never  rebuilt  after  the  fire  of  a  quarter  of 
a  century  ago.  We  planed  the  logs  and  grazed 
our  fingers,  but  the  pain  did  not  count.  Though 
all  these  preparatory  stages  occurred  a  fortnight 
beforehand,  the  actual  building  operations  never 
began  until  the  night  when  the  great  Fast  was 
over.     Old  traditions  clung  to  us,  and  somehow 


64    SOME   SUCCAHS   I   HAVE   KNOWN 

we  knew  that  it  was  a  special  merit  to  close  the 
Day  of  Atonement,  hammer  in  hand,  putting  in 
the  first  nail  of  the  Succah,  passing  as  the  Psalmist 
has  it  "  from  strength  to  strength." 

Our  Succah  was  much  admired,  but  no  critics 
were  more  enthusiastic  than  we  were  ourselves. 
It  goes  without  saying  that  we  had  many  visitors, 
for  people  in  those  days  had  a  keen  eye  for  a 
Succah.  People  who  neglected  us  all  the  year, 
rubbed  up  their  acquaintanceship  as  Tabernacles 
came  round.  We  did  not  wonder  that  our  Succah 
was  popular,  for  we  really  believed  that  our  archi- 
tectural design  was  an  original  one,  and  I  retained 
that  notion  until  only  a  few  days  ago,  when  an 
old  illustrated  jargon  book,  printed  in  Amsterdam 
in  1723,  was  cruelly  placed  in  my  hands,  and  on 
page  45  I  beheld  to  my  chagrin  the  picture  of  just 
such  a  Succah  as  ours  was.  We  put  it  together 
in  this  fashion.  Four  upright  beams  were  con- 
nected at  the  top  and  at  the  bottom  with  cross 
bars  of  wood,  and  thus  was  obtained  a  hollow 
shell  of  substantial  strength.  Our  next  step  was 
to  put  in  the  flooring.  How  we  wasted  our  wood 
by  ingeniously  cutting  the  boards  just  three- 
quarters  of  an  inch  too  short !  But  that  difficulty 
was  overcome,  after  many  councils  of  war,  and 
we  then  put  on  the  roof,  not  flat,  but  sloping. 
The  sloping  roof  was  a  great  conception.  It  did 
away  almost  entirely  with  the  rain  difficulty,  for 
the  water  glided  off  the  thick  leaves  at  the  top 
and  saved  us  from  the  necessity  of  tarpaulins  or 
glass    superstructures.       Most    people   make   the 


SOME   SUCCAHS   I   HAVE    KNOWN     65 

Succah  roof  flat  and  then  build  a  sloping  wooden 
or  glass  frame  above  the  roof.  Our  plan  was  not 
only  prettier,  but  it  enabled  us  to  remain  in  our 
Succah  without  closing  the  top  in  all  but  very 
heavy  showers.  We  had  a  tarpaulin  ready  in  case 
of  exceptional  rain,  but  I  can  only  recollect  one 
or  two  occasions  on  which  we  scaled  the  garden 
walls  and  placed  it  in  position  over  the  greenery. 
But  our  master-stroke  lay  in  the  walls.  There 
were  no  walls  at  all !  A  few  lines  of  stout  string 
made  a  lattice-work  on  which  we  fixed  thick 
layers  of  fragrant  myrtle  branches  and  laurel 
leaves.  The  effect  was  fairy-like,  and  we  did 
not  spoil  it  by  attempting  to  "paint  the  lily." 
The  only  decorations  which  we  introduced  were 
clusters  of  grapes,  which  trailed  their  luscious 
path  along  the  very  walls,  a  few  citrons  in  their 
own  early  amber-yellow,  which  hung  from  the 
bright  roof,  and  an  odd  chrysanthemum  or  two 
still  growing  in  their  mould,  which  added  the 
necessary  streaks  of  colour.  All  this  was  not  so 
costly  as  it  may  sound,  for  we  bought  in  very 
cheap  markets,  and  saved  much  of  the  wood  from 
one  year  to  the  next. 

Over  the  way,  our  neighbours  had  their  Succah 
too.  This  was  also  very  pretty,  and  many  pre- 
ferred it  to  ours.  It  belonged  to  a  more  conven- 
tional and  ornate  type,  for  it  was  really  a  sort  of 
summer-house  which  stood  all  the  year  and  was 
dis-roofed  when  Tabernacles  drew  nigh.  We  boys 
used  to  like  to  have  a  hand  in  their  decorations  as 
well  as  in  our  own,  though  it  went  to  our  hearts 

E 


G6    SOME   SUCCAHS   I   HAVE   KNOWN 

to  see  the  beautiful  apples  and  pears  betinselled 
with  wrappers  of  gold  and  silver  paper.  The 
gilder  in  those  days  was  the  only  "  proper  "  beauti- 
fier.  Then,  reams  of  coloured  papers  were  cut 
into  strips  and  twined  into  chains.  Finally, 
out  came  the  samplers  which  the  girls  worked 
with  their  own  fingers.  These  samplers  con- 
tained the  Succah  benedictions  embroidered  and 
crocheted  in  the  drollest  of  droll  Hebrew  letters, 
but  somehow  as  they  were  brought  out  year  by 
year,  and  were  hung  in  position  on  the  walls  with 
the  Mizrach  facing  the  West,  a  silence  of  mingled 
gladness  and  tenderness  fell  upon  them  all.  It 
seemed  like  a  stock-taking  of  past  memories,  and 
a  renewal  of  past,  forgotten  loves.  But  we  loved 
best  our  own  little  bit  of  nature  unadorned. 

Sadly  lacking  in  ornament,  whether  natural  or 
artificial,  was  a  Succah  which  many  of  my  readers 
will  recollect.  It  belonged  to  a  remarkable  man 
now  dead.  He  had  more  piety  than  pence.  He 
occupied  three  or  four  rooms  on  the  top  floor 
of  a  tall  house  in  Bevis  Marks,  and  he  had  not 
even  a  square  foot  of  open  space.  Must  he 
therefore  be  robbed  of  the  mitsvah  of  sitting 
in  his  own  Succah,  nay,  of  sleeping  in  it? 
Perish  the  thought !  A  convenient  trap-door  in 
one  of  his  garrets  suggested  an  ingenious  plan. 
He  first  raised  the  trap-door,  removed  the  sky- 
light— which  was  very  ricketty  and  easily  de- 
tached— and  hung  sheets  round  the  hole,  the 
sheets  trailing  to  the  ground  and  beyond,  and 
catching  the  feet  of  unwary  visitors.     Of  course 


SOME  SUCCAHS   I   HAVE   KNOWN    67 

we  all  would  go  and  see  this  old  gentleman  every 
Tabernacles.  He  refused  admittance  to  none, 
whether  you  could  comfortably  squeeze  yourself 
in  was  your  business  not  his.  You  plodded  your 
weary  way  up  five  or  six  flights  of  stairs  and 
stumbled  through  a  hole  in  the  sheetings.  If 
you  have  never  before  seen  the  sight  that  greets 
you,  prepare  for  a  surprise !  You  would  find  no 
furniture  in  the  room  but  a  simple  chair  bedstead. 
One  wall  contained  nothing  but  a  red  handker- 
chief on  which  was  imprinted  a  fancy  picture  of 
Jerusalem  with  Moses  and  Aaron  on  either  side 
of  the  Ten  Commandments,  while  olive  branches 
figured  in  all  possible  and  impossible  corners  of 
the  picture.  The  other  wall  was  filled  with  a 
huere  scroll  on  which,  with  his  own  hand,  he  had 
written  out  at  great  length  the  wonders  of  the 
Leviathan  on  which  the  good  shall  hereafter  feed. 
But  the  most  amazing  thing  was  the  host  himself. 
He  would  be  so  seated  that  his  head  and  shoulders 
were  directly  under  the  very  aperture  in  the  roof. 
He  was  near-sighted,  but  when  he  espied  you, 
eagerly  would  he  seize  your  arm  and  push  you 
into  the  place  which  he  vacated,  so  that  you  too 
had  your  head  under  the  centre  of  the  hole  while 
you  recited  the  proper  blessing.  Of  course  he 
slept  in  his  queer  Succah  every  night,  and  equally 
of  course  he  had  an  annual  cold  in  the  head  for 
at  least  three  months  afterwards. 

Such  humble  constructions  were  almost  invari- 
ably the  result  of  poverty.  One  well-known  case 
occurred  in  which  a  Succah  was  built  on  a  small 


68    SOME   SUCCAHS  I   HAVE  KNOWN 

balcony  outside  the  first-floor  window  of  a  house 
in  Amsterdam,  if  I  remember  accurately.  The 
poor  owner  could  not  help  himself.  He  could  not 
act  like  our  previous  friend,  for  he  did  not  live 
at  the  top  of  the  house.  So  he  just  opened  the 
window  slightly  at  the  top  and  slipped  into  the 
crevice  half-a-dozen  long  sticks  parallel  to  one 
another.  (He  was  a  stick-dealer  by  profession). 
Then  he  opened  the  lower  half  of  the  window, 
squeezing  it  up  as  tight  as  it  would  go.  This 
lower  part  of  the  window  he  left  open  the  whole 
week,  for  the  Succah  was  made  by  covering  the 
projecting  sticks  with  leaves.  The  man  who 
lived  on  the  ground-floor  was  not  a  Jew,  and 
beheld  his  first-floor  neighbour's  arrangements 
with  astonishment.  He  remonstrated  in  vain,  so 
he  went  to  the  magistrate  for  redress,  and  a 
summons  was  granted.  The  case  came  on  just 
the  day  before  Tabernacles,  and  the  decision  was 
a  good  joke,  well  remembered  by  many.  "  You 
are  robbing  this  man  of  his  light,"  said  the  magis- 
trate, "  and  I  give  you  just  eight  days  in  which 
to  remove  the  obstruction."  The  Jew  readily 
promised  that  he  would  obey  the  order  of  the 
court,  which  he  did  when  the  festival  was  over. 

But  one  unsightly  Succah  that  I  knew,  owed 
its  ugliness  to  the  owner's  stinginess.  He  was 
very  rich,  but  was  a  thorough  miser.  He  made 
his  Succah  small  to  save  his  hoarded  shillings; 
and  he  made  it  unattractive  lest  too  many  visitors 
should  present  themselves.  He  constructed  the 
walls  out  of  old  packing-cases,  and  did  not  take 


SOME   SUCCAHS   I   HAVE    KNOWN     GO 

the  trouble  to  erase  the  inscriptions  daubed  upon 
them.  As  you  approached  his  Succah  your  eyes 
were  greeted  with  the  legend :  "  This  side  up  with 
care,"  "  Empty  crate,  to  be  returned,"  and  so  forth. 
The  inscription  that  puzzled  me  most  ran  thus: 
"  Dog-hooks  not  to  be  used."  I  never  knew  what 
a  dog-hook  was,  and  it  only  occurred  to  me  to 
look  while  writing  these  reminiscences.  I  find 
from  Lloyd's  Dictionary  that  a  dog-hook  is  a  kind 
of  iron  bar,  or  wrench,  for  opening  iron-bound 
cases;  but  a  German  toy-dealer  tells  me  they  are 
really  hooks  for  cranes  that  are  used  chiefly  for 
hoisting  barrels  but  not  suitable  for  slenderly 
made  cases.  This  miserable  man  was  one  of 
the  first  I  knew  to  apply  to  Baron  Lionel  de 
Rothschild  for  laurel  branches  to  cover  the  roof 
of  his  Succah.  Even  in  those  days  the  Roths- 
childs never  refused  any  such  application,  though 
the  scale  on  which  the  branches  are  supplied  is 
now  far  more  extensive.  I  believe  that  special 
bushes  and  trees  are  planted  at  Gunnersbury  to 
meet  the  ever-growing  demand  on  Tabernacles. 
Many  a  poor  East-End  Jew,  who  would  otherwise 
be  forced  to  forego  the  pleasure,  is  thus  enabled  to 
build  his  Succah.  But  I  do  not  quite  see  why 
some  of  my  West-End  friends  also  avail  them- 
selves of  Mr.  Leopold  de  Rothschild's  princely 
generosity. 

I  have  mentioned  some  humble  Succahs,  let  me 
introduce  my  readers  to  a  very  beautiful  one 
which  might  be  seen  a  few  years  ago  at  the 
Hague. 


70    SOME  SUCCAHS  I   HAVE   KNOWN 

Mr.  D.  Polak  Daniels,  a  Warden  of  the  Jewish 
congregation  in  the  Hague,  and  a  member  of  the 
Municipality  and  of  the  County  Council  for  South 
Holland,  is  undoubtedly  the  owner  of  one  of  the 
handsomest  Succahs  that  have  ever  been  built. 
This  notable  Succah,  which  stands  in  the  spacious 
garden   in   his   residence   in   the  Spuistraat,  was 
built  nearly  forty-five  years  ago  by  Mr.  Daniels's 
father-in-law.      it    is    almost    square,    and    con- 
structed of  wood  and  painted  glass.     The  internal 
decorations  are  extremely  handsome  and  tasteful, 
the    prevailing    colour    being    light    blue.      The 
coloured  glass  is  very   fine.    The  Succah  is   so 
constructed  that  when  taken  to  pieces  the  panels 
of  two  of  the  sides  form  a  box  in  which  all  the 
other  parts  are  deposited.     There  is  an  interesting 
episode  in  connection  with  this  Succah,  the  fame 
of  which  has  spread  beyond  the  confines  of  the 
Hague.    During  the  lifetime  of  the  late  Queen 
of  Holland   this   Succah   was   mentioned   at  her 
Majesty's  dinner  table.     Queen  Sophia  was  well 
versed  in  Jewish  history  and  observances,  and  she 
expressed  a  wish  to  see  Mr.  Daniels's  Succah,  it 
being  then  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles.     The  request 
was  of  course  complied  with,  and  on  the  following 
afternoon  the  Queen  paid  her  visit,  which  lasted 
half-an-hour.     In  the  course  of  conversation  with 
her  host  her  Majesty  displayed  her  Jewish  know- 
ledge.     She    asked    Mr.    Daniels,    for    instance, 
whether    he    was    a    Cohen,    and    whether    the 
Cohanim  still  adhered  to  the  prohibition  against 
touching  a  corpse.     Although  contrary  to  Court 


SOME  SUCCAHS  I  HAVE  KNOWN  71 

etiquette  to  partake  of  refreshments,  her  Majesty 
made  an  exception  in  this  case,  in  order  to  carry 
out  the  custom  of  eating  and  drinking  in  a 
tabernacle.  On  taking  leave  the  Queen  laugh- 
ingly said  to  Mr.  Daniels :  "  I  take  }rour  word  for 
a  great  deal,  but  you  cannot  make  me  believe 
that  your  ancestors  in  the  desert  lived  in  such 
splendid  booths  as  this."  What  a  contrast  this  to 
one  poor  fellow  I  knew  who  turned  his  shop- 
shutters  into  walls,  and  a  few  old  fiat  baskets  into 
roofing,  rather  than  have  no  Succah  at  all. 
Indeed,  there  is  room  for  both  kinds  of  service 
to  God,  for  the  wealthy  and  the  poor.  If  the 
service  is  cheerfully  rendered,  who  knows  which 
finds  the  more  acceptance  ? 

Yet  I  came  out  not  to  preach,  but  to  jot  down 
some  memories  of  Succahs  I  have  known.  In 
my  youth,  the  public  Succah  was  not  yet  a 
popular  institution.  There  was  a  rather  fine  one 
erected  in  the  courtyard  of  Bevis  Marks  Snoga, 
but  of  that  more  anon.  It  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  if  the  city  synagogues  had  no  Succahs,  the 
Rav's  was  an  excellent  substitute.  When  I  first 
remember  it,  it  was  already  large  and  substantial, 
with  a  fire-stove  in  it  and,  if  I  recollect  truly,  it 
was  lit  by  gas.  Old  Dr.  Adler  received  his  guests 
with  patriarchial  courtliness,  and  the  flow  of 
learned  discussion  and  of  casual  gossip  on  com- 
munal affairs  was  ceaseless.  A  fine  feature  in  the 
late  Rav's  character — which  his  son  inherits — was 
his  cheerfulness.  It  was  at  a  notable  breakfast  to 
the  communal  magnates  given  by  Dr.  Adler  in  his 


72    SOME   SUCCAHS   I   HAVE   KNOWN 

Succah  that  the  idea  of  the  United  Synagogue 
first  took  practical  form.  Opposite,  on  the  other 
side  of  Finsbury  Square,  stood  Jews'  College,  with 
a  pretty  Succah  in  a  small  glass  conservatory 
on  the  stairs.  I  must  have  seen  it  during  my 
father's  tenure  of  the  principalship,  but  only  re- 
member it  as  it  was  when  Dr.  Friedlander  suc- 
ceeded him.  My  experience  has  proved  that 
Succahs  are  mostly  made  by  those  who  have  least 
room. 

The  Succah  of  the  Bevis  Marks  Synagogue  is 
the  only  one  I  have  ever  seen  in  which  a  dis- 
tinction was  made  between  rich  and  poor.  But, 
after  all,  those  who  paid  for  the  mitsvah  deserved 
to  get  something  for  their  money.  There  was,  in 
fact,  a  reserved  compartment  for  the  wardens  and 
officials  and  the  high-born  aristocracy,  while  the 
plebeians  flocked  into  a  larger  and  less  ornate 
Succah  which  stood  in  front  of  the  other.  In  my 
days  the  Sephardim  did  not  build  many  private 
Succahs,  the  only  ones  I  remember  were  those 
of  Mogador  and  Gibraltar  Jews,  a  stately  specimen 
being  that  of  Dayan  Corcos  in  Bury  Street.  A 
fine  old  gentleman  he  was.  Always  dressed  in 
Moorish  costume,  with  a  flowing  white  satin  tunic, 
a  crimson  or  yellow  sash,  and  a  red  fez  or  a 
turban,  he  cut  a  splendid  figure.  He  often 
welcomed  me  as  a  boy  and  gave  me  Mogador 
cakes,  shaped  like  rings,  the  chief  ingredient  used 
in  their  concoction  being  almonds.  But  to  return 
to  Bevis  Marks.  The  Succah  was  not  a  per- 
manent brick  building  as  it  is  with  other  syna- 


SOME   SUCCAHS   I   HAVE    KNOWN     73 

gogues  nowadays,  still  less  was  it  used  all  the  year 
round  as  the  minister's  drawing-room,  a  use  made 
of  the  Tabernacle  in  a  West-End  synagogue. 
The  Bevis  Marks  Succah  was  taken  down  piece 
by  piece  and  stored  in  a  shed  through  the  year, 
side  by  side  with  an  old  obsolete  fire-engine. 
Even  in  my  youth  the  memory  of  the  oldest 
inhabitant  failed  to  recollect  a  single  instance 
in  which  this  fire-engine  had  been  used.  The 
Succah  was  pieced  together  every  year;  it  was 
very  strong,  but,  as  I  hinted  before,  was  much 
more  like  a  Succah  than  the  brick  constructions 
in  the  West-End  synagogues  nowadays,  but  these 
last  are  yearly  becoming  more  beautiful,  more 
bower-like.  Well,  the  one  I  am  now  dealing  with 
was  painted  green  outside,  but  the  inside  was  not 
pretty.  The  smaller  reserved  compartment  was 
much  more  gorgeous,  of  course.  But  the  larger 
public  section  had  no  proper  greenery  on  the 
roof,  for  the  covering  was  made  of  wickerwork. 
Though  this  was  economical  it  was  not  aesthetic. 
I  believe  that  it  has  been  altered  in  recent  years. 
But  the  most  interesting  feature  of  the  Bevis 
Marks  Succah  was  Mr.  Belasco,  the  beadle.  His 
tall,  burly  form  recalled  the  pugilistic  heroes 
which  his  family  had  produced  in  the  past  ages 
of  the  glorious  prize-ring.  This  Mr.  Belasco, 
however,  was  as  good-humoured  as  he  was  big. 
Naturally,  as  there  was  no  other  public  Succah  in 
the  neighbourhood,  many  Tedescos  (German  Jews) 
contrived  to  squeeze  themselves  into  the  company 
of  the  blue-blooded.    Mr.  Belasco  enjoyed  tracking 


74    SOME   SUCCAHS   I   HAVE   KNOWN 

out  the  intruders.  "These  Tedescos  are  welcome 
to  enter,"  he  said,  "but  they  shall  have  none 
of  my  olives."  Let  me  explain.  Mr.  Belasco 
used  to  go  round  with  a  small  keg  of  Spanish 
olives — even  the  olives  were  Sephardic — and  per- 
mitted every  hidalgo  to  insert  his  fingers  and  take 
one  of  the  tempting  morsels.  This  would  go  on 
merrily  till  Mr.  Belasco  came  to  an  undoubted 
Tedesco.  "You  are  not  a  Portugee,"  he  would 
say.  "  0  yes,  I  am  a  Portugee,"  was  the  response. 
Mr.  Belasco  was  not  taken  in  by  the  insinuating 
smile  of  his  all-confident  interlocutor.  "If  you 
are  a  Portugee,  say  Shemang  Yisrael,"  came  the 
crushing  rejoinder.  The  mere  Tedesco  would  at- 
tempt to  repeat  the  first  line  of  the  Shema',  but 
would  almost  invariably  say  Yitrael  for  Yisrael 
— a  common  mistake  of  Ashkenazim  who  try  to 
read  in  the  Portuguese  style.  This  new  Shibboleth 
of  Mr.  Belasco's  always  succeeded  in  weeding  out 
the  interlopers,  but  much  ready  wit  was  displayed, 
and  altogether  every  one  enjoyed  the  scene  im- 
mensely. 

For  the  present  I  must  break  off  here.  I  have 
forgotten  to  tell  many  things :  how,  for  instance, 
one  friend  of  mine  reserved  his  finest  tapestry  for 
decorating  his  Succah  walls  and  locked  it  up  all 
the  year.  (This  is  recommended  in  the  Talmud.) 
Another  man  I  knew  made  an  elaborate  crown  of 
leaves  and  flowers  and  fruits  and  suspended  it 
from  the  ceiling  of  his  dining-room  to  remind  him 
of  the  Succah  which  he  did  not  possess.  The 
smallest  Succah  of  the  pretty  type  that  I  ever 


SOME   SUCCAHS   I   HAVE   KNOWN    75 

entered  was  Mr.  Bernays'.  It  was  one  of  the 
daintiest  objects  on  view  at  the  Anglo- Jewish 
Exhibition.  But  we  must  beware  lest  we  allow 
the  Succah  to  find  its  way  exclusively  to 
museums.  The  Succah  is  an  antiquity,  but  it 
must  not  become  a  mere  object  of  curiosity  to 
antiquarians.  It  has  not  yet  exhausted  its  vital 
possibilities. 


XI 

"JUM1A  DEVICTA" 

Any  one  who  is  familiar  with  ancient  and  medieval 
forms  of  mourning  has  no  difficulty  in  under- 
standing the  methods  chosen  for  celebrating  the 
Fast  of  the  Ninth  of  Ab,  the  anniversary  of  the 
destruction  of  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem.  Just  as 
joy  was  exhibited  by  floods  of  light  and  music 
and  song,  by  white  or  bright  coloured  attire,  by 
merry  greetings,  by  indulgence  in  meat  and  wine 
and  other  cheering  food,  by  sitting  on  soft  and 
luxurious  cushions,  sorrow  was  displayed  by  gloom 
and  the  absence  of  melody,  by  black  dresses,  by 
silent  rencontres  of  friends,  by  sitting  on  the  ground, 
by  a  vegetarian  and  strictly  non-alcoholic  diet,  and 
a  measured  one  at  that.  "  All  the  signs  of  mourn- 
ing for  the  dead  are  to  be  observed  on  the  Ninth 
of  Ab,  but  all  the  signs  are  to  be  intensified."  It 
is  sometimes  supposed  that  the  use  of  black 
draperies  is  restricted  to  the  Scphardic  synagogues. 
This  is  by  no  means  true.  In  many  German  con- 
gregations similar  signs  of  grief  prevailed  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  still  linger  on  here  and  there. 
Thus,  at  Frankfort,  where  they  had  no  special 
curtain  for  the  Ark  for  use  on  this  day,  they  turned 
the  ordinary  one  inside  out,  and  set  it  with  its 

76 


"JUMJA  DEVICTA"  77 

embroidered  face  to  the  wall.  The  worshippers 
put  on  mourning  garb  and  suspended  from  their 
hats  long  black  streamers,  which  they  caught  up 
in  their  hands.  But  it  was  chiefly  in  the  Orient 
that  black  luxuriated  on  the  Ninth  of  Ab.  To 
the  Moslem,  black  is  hateful :  he  wears  it  only 
when  in  deepest  grief.  The  Jew  is  forced  to  wear 
black  all  the  year  round  in  the  East,  excepting  of 
course  the  "protected"  inhabitants  of  the  coast 
towns.  It  is  no  special  thing,  then,  for  a  Jew  to 
appear  in  the  Mellah  decked  in  black ;  to  show 
his  grief  on  the  Ninth  of  Ab,  he  decks  his  syna- 
gogue, too,  in  the  same  dismal  attire.  He  takes 
the  Scroll  of  the  Law  from  its  silver  case,  removes 
the  bells  and  beautified  mantle,  and  substitutes 
a  black  serge  wrapping,  simple  in  its  mournful 
wcirdness.  In  fact,  this  part  of  the  Ninth  of  Ab 
rite  is,  I  feel  convinced,  derived  from  Moslem  and 
not  from  Christian  example ;  it  came  from  the 
East,  not  from  the  West.  Surely  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  the  dirges,  too,  are  Eastern  in  type, 
that  the  abandonment  to  grief,  as  shown  in  tearful, 
moving,  unmelodious  tunes,  is  but  an  echo  of  the 
Oriental  tendency  to  self-pity.  But  the  Jew  has 
never  been  a  mere  imitator,  and  here,  too,  he  in- 
troduces something  of  his  own  nature.  He  sets 
some  of  the  Ninth  of  Ab  dirges  to  merry  tunes 
and  sings  joyously  between  his  tears,  for  he  has 
gone  through  a  real  life  and  knows  its  incessant 
contrasts.  This  admixture  of  the  merry  with  the 
miserable  is  found  on  the  Ninth  of  Ab  all  the 
world  over,  and  it  says  much  for  the  reality  of 


78  "JUDiEA  DEVICTA" 

Judaism.  Judaism  is  indeed  a  living  copy  of  life, 
and  it  showed  its  marvellous  power  to  win  men's 
love  through  their  humanity  in  the  tradition  that 
just  as  the  Temple  fell  on  the  Ninth  of  Ab,  so  the 
Messiah  would  come  again  on  that  self-same  day. 
Of  course  the  merry  notes  are  rare  on  this 
anniversary.  Yet  art  is  never  absent.  The  tricks 
of  the  Cantor  in  the  Middle  Ages  were  worthy  of 
the  actor.  Indeed,  a  Jew  gifted  with  a  voice  and 
emotional  power,  having  no  other  outlet  to  his 
talent,  was  perforce  compelled  to  insinuate  some 
of  the  devices  of  the  stage  into  the  synagogue. 
With  slow  step  the  Cantor  would  advance  in  front 
of  the  Scroll  sighing,  like  a  love-lorn  tenor  in  the 
opera:  "Mourn,  0  Law,  for  thy  beauty  is  veiled 
to-day,"  or  he  would  take  a  handful  of  ashes  and 
strew  them  in  the  Ark  murmuring,  "Ashes  in 
place  of  garlands."  But  in  the  evening  the 
theatrical  element  was  even  more  marked,  and  I 
am  not  using  theatrical  in  a  disrespectful  sense. 
The  candles  were  lit  for  evening  prayer  droned  to 
direreful  tunes.  The  Cantor  would  be  seated  on 
the  steps  leading  up  to  the  Ark.  The  beadle  then 
would  go  round  and  extinguish  all  the  candles, 
leaving  but  one  to  give  a  dim  religious  light  at 
the  small  table  by  which  the  Cantor  would  lie 
prostrate  as  he  read  the  "  Lamentations  of  Jere- 
miah." Now  was  his  opportunity.  If  he  has 
power  to  move  an  audience  to  tears,  now  he  will 
use  it !  But  stay,  before  he  begins,  a  white-haired 
elder  rises  and  says,  in  the  vernacular,  Arabic, 
Spanish,  or  English  as  the  case  may  be:  "Thus 


"JVDJEA  DEVICTA"  79 

•and  thus  many  years  arc  passed  sinco  the  First 
Temple  fell,  thus  and  thus  many  years  since  the 
Second  Temple  was  destroyed,  yet  are  we  not 
saved.  Woe  unto  us,  we  have  sinned.  Each  of 
us  in  whose  days  the  Temple  is  not  again  built  up 
is  as  he  in  whose  da}<s  the  Temple  was  destroyed." 
Tears  and  groans  greeted  this  announcement.  Let 
it  not  be  held  strange  that  the  vernacular  was 
used,  for  curiously  enough  the  use  of  the  vernacular 
has  long  been  common  on  the  Ninth  of  Ab.  The 
Sephardim  in  London,  of  course,  would  not  dream 
of  translating  the  Haftara  into  English,  but  they 
do  translate  it  verse  by  verse  into  Spanish  on 
this  fast  day.  It  is  still  translated  (with  the  Book 
of  Job)  into  Arabic  in  Cairo  and  Morocco.  Then 
came  the  "Lamentations."  The  Cantor  began  in 
a  whisper,  but  a  whisper  that  could  penetrate. 
Gradually  his  voice  rose,  until  as  the  end  came 
near,  its  full  volume  swelled  forth  in  dire,  dis- 
tressful tears.  As  he  proceeded  the  congregation 
punctuated  his  lines  with  sighs  of  "  Woe  !  Sorrow!" 
or  with  the  exclamation,  "  0  God,  remember." 
Perhaps  he  would  go  a  step  further.  He  would 
place  the  Scroll,  not  on  a  desk  or  table,  but  on  the 
recumbent  back  of  a  fellow-worshipper  who  would 
kneel  in  front  of  him — further  type  of  Zion's  glory 
trailing  in  the  dust. 

At  home,  before  this  scene  was  enacted — ami 
now  I  am  talking  of  Jews  all  the  world  over — 
there  came  a  fitting  preparation.  Many  Jews 
imagine  that  the  delivering  of  homilies  in  the 
home  is  un-Jewish,  but  this  is  mere  ignorance. 


80  "JUDAEA   DEVICTA" 

The  home  sermon  was  a  familiar  Jewish  institu- 
tion in  the  Middle  Ages;  as,  indeed,  was  street 
preaching  in  the  Jewish  ghettos.  Well,  on  the 
eve  of  the  Ninth  of  Ab,  the  final  meal  before  the 
fast  began  was  partaken  with  every  sign  of  mourn- 
ing ;  barefooted,  seated  on  the  ground,  with  ashes 
around  and  on  his  lips,  the  father  would  address 
his  household  in  a  few  sad  words.  Then  they 
would  eat  mourners'  food :  especially  eggs  and 
lentils,  because,  as  the  poetical  explanation  had 
it,  "  eggs  have  no  mouth,  and  our  grief  is  too 
strong  also  for  words."  In  medieval  Babylon  the 
Jews  wore  no  shoes  all  day  on  this  anniversary ; 
they  did  not  even  wear  them  in  the  afternoon, 
but  in  the  time  of  the  Geonim  carried  their  shoes 
with  them  in  their  hands  to  afternoon  prayer  on 
the  Ninth  of  Ab,  and  only  put  them  on  when  the 
fast  was  quite  over.  But  Jews  were  often  gifted 
with  good  sense;  and  in  the  Middle  Ages  when 
the  non- Jewish  rabble  jeered  at  the  sight  of  the 
barefooted  Jews,  R.  Joel  Levi,  of  Wurzburg,  in 
1220,  ordained  that  this  rite  was  not  to  be  observed 
except  within  the  precincts  of  the  Jewish  quarter. 
If  the  fast  fell  on  a  Sunday,  then  on  the  Saturday 
evening  they  would  go  to  synagogue  in  their  boots, 
but  would  remove  them,  no  doubt  with  a  woeful 
clatter,  when  the  Cantor  began.  I  must  not  omit 
one  point.  In  the  Middle  Ages  an  official  called 
the  Schul-Klopfer  used  to  summon  people  to 
synagogue  by  knocking  at  the  doors  of  the  con- 
gregants' houses,  and  also  by  blows  dealt  at  the 
door   of  the  synagogue.      But   on   the   eve   and 


"JUDvEA   DEVrCTA"  8] 

morning  of  the  Ninth  of  Ab  this  summons  was 
omitted,  though  at  tho  afternoon  service  the 
ordinary  habit  was  resumed.  Friend  met  friend 
in  silence,  and,  most  marked  token  of  all,  those 
who  were  called  up  to  the  Law  were  not  saluted 
with  the  customary  greeting  as  they  completed 
the  Mitsvah. 

To  describe  the  way  in  which  they  passed  the 
time  not  spent  in  the  synagogue,  is  easily  done 
in  a  few  lines.  They  did  little  work,  and  less 
reading.  There  is  evidence  that  it  was  occasionally 
found  difficult  to  restrain  the  idle  congregation 
from  indulging  in  frivolous  occupations  to  while 
away  the  dreary  time.  But,  on  the  other  hand. 
some  spent  the  whole  night  and  day  in  synagogue, 
as  on  the  Day  of  Atonement,  but  curious  to  tell 
no  weird  legends  have  grown  up  round  the  Black 
Fast,  as  they  have  round  the  White.  Perhaps  this 
is  because  the  Jews  on  the  former  occasion  them- 
selves visited  the  graves  of  the  dead,  and  thus 
there  was  no  room  for  ghostly  intruders  among 
the  living,  as  on  Kol  Nidre  night.  Why  did 
the  Jews  visit  the  cemeteries  ?  First,  no  doubt, 
because  of  the  general  mourning  complexion  of 
the  whole  celebration,  but  there  was  another 
reason.  Especially  in  the  East,  pilgrimages  are 
made  on  this  day  to  the  supposed  graves  of 
departed  prophets  and  other  Jewish  worthies 
of  remote  or  nearer  antiquity.  Here  is  a 
beautiful  instance  of  solidarity.  No  doubt  many 
Jewish  ascetics  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  in  Tal- 
mud times  wished  to  go  further.     They  wished 

F 


82  "JUDAEA  DEVICTA" 

so  to  link  their  griefs  with  those  of  their  fathers 
that  they  sought  throughout  their  lives  to  retain 
tokens  of  sorrow  as  memorials  of  the  destruction. 
The  visits  paid  to  the  tombs  on  the  Ninth  day  of 
Ab  belong  to  the  most  poetical  of  these  memorials. 
Some  may  call  them  superstitious :  I  think  myself 
that  poetical  is  the  right  word  to  use.  For  on 
the  Ninth  of  Ab,  the  Midrash  tells  us,  the  Patri- 
archs move  in  their  graves  with  grief,  and  weep 
at  the  sight  of  their  children's  exile.  In  Kalir's 
beautiful  dirge,  Jeremiah  is  represented  as  stand- 
ing at  the  Cave  of  Machpelah  where  the  Patriarchs 
lie  buried.     Kalir  opens  thus  : — 

"  The  Prophet  standing  by  the  fathers'  graves, 
With  soul  o'erwhelraed  he  speaks,  for  solace  craves  ; — 
How  can  ye  lie  at  rest,  beloved  ones, 
While  sharpened  swords  consume  your  captive  sons  ? 
Where  now,  O  fathers,  lurks  your  merit  rare 
In  that  vast  wilderness  of  land  laid  bare  ? 
They  cry  each  one  with  lamentation  sore 
For  children  banished,  sons  that  are  no  more  ; 
They  pray  imploring  with  a  cry  for  grace, 
To  Him  who  dwelleth  in  the  realms  of  space. 
Ah  !  where  is  now  God's  promise  made  of  old  ? 
'  I  will  not  my  first  covenant  withhold.'" 

One  by  one  the  Fathers  rise  and  implore  God's 
help  on  behalf  of  his  sorrowing  children.  At  last 
this  gracious  message  of  God  is  given  in  response 
to  their  pleading  : — 

"  Turn,  O  ye  perfect  ones, 
Unto  your  rest  again ; 
I  will  fulfil  for  you 
All  that  your  hearts  desire 


"JVDMA  DEVICTA"  83 

Down  unto  Babylon 
With  you  My  Presence  went, 
Surely  will  I  return 
Your  sons'  captivity." 

These  feelings  may  be  shared  surely  by  all  Jews 
even  though  they  do  not  all  dream  of  a  future 
Return,  even  though  they  do  not  all  long  for  the 
restoration  of  Zion's  glory.  If  Christians  could 
for  centuries  join  the  Jews  in  celebrating  the 
Ninth  of  Ab,  surely  the  most  lukewarm  of  us  may 
find  his  heart  fanned  at  least  into  a  momentary 
Love  for  Zion  by  the  thought  of  what  our  fathers- 
suffered  in  order  that  we  might  survive  to-day. 


XII 

THE  DECALOGUE   IN   THE  LITURGY 

The  restoration  of  the  Ten  Commandments  to 
their  place  in  the  service  of  the  synagogue  is  one 
of  the  most  notable  of  recent  reversions  to  the 
past.  There  are  now  several  synagogues  in  London 
alone  in  which  this  charter  of  social  and  religious 
virtue  is  recited  from  the  pulpit  every  week.  The 
Talmud  says :  "  Of  right  they  should  read  the  Ten 
Words  every  day.  For  what  reason  do  they  not 
read  them?  On  account  of  the  cavilling  of  the 
heretics,  so  that  they  might  not  say :  These  only 
were  given  to  Moses  on  Sinai."  How  strangely 
the  wheel  turns  round  in  human  thought !  The 
modern  "  heretic,"  in  the  guise  of  the  Higher  Critic, 
often  singles  out  the  Decalogue  as  the  very  thing 
that  he  thinks  was  not  given  to  Moses  at  all. 
I  do  not  share  this  doubt,  for  I  have  never  seen 
adequate  reason  for  doubting  the  Mosaic  date 
of  the  Decalogue. 

Though  the  Ten  Commandments  were  dis- 
charged from  the  liturgy,  Rabbinical  fancy  retained 
them  by  the  interesting  and  ingenious  discovery 
that  the  Decalogue  is  embodied  in  the  Shema'. 
The  details  are  somewhat  forced,  but  the  main 
thought  is  natural  and  true.     The  whole  Torah,  so 


THE  DECALOGUE   IN   THE   LITUKGY     85 

far  as  concerns  its  moral  contents,  can  be  evolved 
from  almost  any  one  of  its  characteristic  passages. 
With  regard  to  the  liturgical  use  of  the  Decalogue, 
I  hardly  know  what  to  infer  from  the  fact  that  the 
Ten  Words  seem  in  the  early  Middle  Ages  to  have 
been  sometimes  written  on  separate  little  scrolls. 
I  saw  one  at  Cairo,  taken  from  the  Geniza,  and 
reference  is  made  to  such  scrolls  in  the  Responses 
of  the  Gaonim.  Possibly  the  Nash  papytms  is 
of  the  same  character. 

Not  only  was  the  Decalogue  read  from  the 
Scroll  of  the  Law  twice  a  year  as  the  regular 
Sabbath  portion,  when  the  turn  came  for  the 
20th  chapter  of  Exodus  and  the  5th  chapter  of 
Deuteronomy,  but,  naturally,  the  Ten  Words  were 
also  chosen  for  the  Pentateuchal  lesson  on  the 
Feast  of  Weeks.  According  to  Dr.  Biichler  we 
must,  however,  reverse  the  cause  and  effect.  He 
ingeniously  shows  that  in  the  normal  sequence  of 
the  Triennial  reading  of  the  Law,  the  Decalogue 
fell  to  Pentecost  in  the  second  year  of  the  cycle. 
Hence  the  traditional  association  of  Pentecost  with 
the  giving  of  the  Law.  In  Palestine,  the  Pentecost 
lesson  began  with  Exodus  xx.,  but  the  Babylonian 
custom  resembled  our  own,  and  Exodus  xix.  was 
included.  In  accordance  with  the  Triennial  cycle, 
the  Decalogue  in  Deuteronomy  fell  sometimes  on 
the  New  Year's  day,  and  the  Samaritans  read  the 
Ten  Commandments  not  only  on  Pentecost  but 
also  on  New  Year.  The  Commandments  were 
translated  verse  by  verse  into  Aramaic.  Of  course, 
such  translation  accompanied  all  the  readings  from 


86  THE  DECALOGUE  IN  THE  LITURGY 

the  Pentateuch,  but  the  Decalogue  enjoyed  special 
rights  in  this  respect.  The  Midrash  says  that 
every  Commandment  was  spoken  at  Sinai  in 
seventy  languages,  so  that  all  the  world  could  hear 
and  understand  the  divine  revelation.  It  is  not 
inconceivable,  from  the  long  Aramaic  additions 
after  each  Commandment  which  are  found  in  the 
Machzor  Vitry,  that  the  custom  of  translating  the 
Decalogue  into  Aramaic  was  continued  in  medieval 
France.  It  is  extremely  probable  that  the  Aramaic 
piyutim  Akdamuth  Millin  and  Yetsib  Pithgam  are 
a  survival  of  this  custom.  Arabic  replaced  the 
Aramaic  in  Yemen  and  elsewhere.  The  special 
liturgical  value  attaching  to  the  reading  of  the 
Decalogue  is  further  shown  by  the  general  prac- 
tice of  using  a  special  "  niggun "  (or  cantillation), 
and  also  of  standing  during  the  public  reading  of 
the  passage.  Some  pietists  always  stand  while  the 
Pentateuch  is  being  read,  but  the  general  habit  is 
to  remain  seated.  One  finds  some  authorities 
offering  a  curious  objection  to  the  custom,  except 
on  Pentecost  and  a  few  other  occasions.  The 
person  called  to  the  Law  was  wont  to  bow  during 
the  recital  of  the  benediction  when  he  ascended 
the  reading-desk.  Now  if  the  congregation  were 
also  standing,  it  would  appear  as  though  he 
were  bowing  to  his  fellow-worshippers,  and  this 
was  regarded  as  objectionable.  Yet  the  custom 
of  bowing  to  the  Wardens  is  not  confined  to 
the  Sephardim,  and  politeness  seems  to  have 
prevailed  against  the  scruple  just  mentioned. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  none  of  these  ecstatic  displays 


THE  DECALOGUE  IN  THE  LITURGY     87 

of  feeling  prevalent  on  the  Rejoicing  of  the 
Law  ever  appear  to  have  occurred  on  Pentecost. 
The  flowers  and  the  fruits  which  decorated  the 
synagogue  gave  a  festive  air  to  the  scene,  but 
the  occasion  was  too  serious  for  indulging  in  the 
wilder  displays  associated  with  the  Rejoicing  of 
the  Law. 

An  extensive  liturgical  use  of  the  Decalogue  was 
made  by  the  poetanim,  as  in  Kalir's  Kerobah  for 
the  second  day  of  Pentecost.  This  is  a  metrical 
commentary  on  the  Ten  Commandments,  and 
a  fine  translation  of  parts  of  the  hymn  is  given 
by  Zunz.  Of  another  type  were  the  numerous 
Azharoth,  which  contained  a  summary  of  the  613 
precepts  into  which  the  Pentateuchal  commands 
were  grouped.  According  to  the  Gaon  Nachshon's 
enumeration  there  are  actually  613  words  in  the 
Decalogue,  but  there  was,  apart  from  any  such 
numerical  motive,  a  natural  desire  to  include  the 
whole  of  the  Law  in  the  homilies  for  the  Feast 
of  Weeks.  In  the  all-night  service  celebrated 
in  some  homes  on  the  previous  evening,  a  sec- 
tion from  every  Sedrah  is  read,  and  the  motive 
is  the  same.  According  to  one  Midrash,  the 
Decalogue  was  written  on  the  two  tables  of  stone 
with  long  intervals,  which  gave  spaco  for  adding 
all  the  rest  of  the  precepts.  These  fancies  grew 
up  luxuriantly.  It  was  felt,  for  instance,  that 
the  stones  on  Avhich  such  precious  words  were 
written  could  not  have  been  of  ordinary  material, 
but,  to  say  the  least,  were  made  of  diamond. 
The    chips   cut   out   during   the   engraving   were 


88  THE  DECALOGUE  IN  THE  LITURGY 

enough  to  enrich  Moses  for  life.  There  is  no 
doubt  a  homiletical  meaning  in  Midrashim  of  this 
class,  a  meaning  so  clear  that  it  is  superfluous  to 
offer  any  help  to  the  reader.  The  Decalogue  was 
a  source  of  wealth  and  of  life :  it  enriched  man- 
kind and  gave  it  vitality. 

Have  the  Ten  Commandments  become  obsolete  ? 
Are  not  the  great  principles  "  Love  God,"  "  Love 
man,"  enough  ?  Let  me  answer  in  the  words  of 
Miss  Wordsworth,  taken  from  her  excellent  little 
book  on  the  Decalogue :  "  No  doubt,  any  one  who 
truly  loved  God  and  loved  his  neighbour  would 
abstain  from  the  acts  forbidden  in  these  Com- 
mandments ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  how  easy  it 
is  to  profess  religious  feelings  in  the  abstract  and 
never  to  bring  our  acceptance  of  a  general  prin- 
ciple to  bear  on  the  particular  instances  at  all  ? 
.  .  .  .  The  Inquisition  professed  great  'love'  for 
the  souls  of  those  whom  it  tortured.  ...  In 
fact,  of  not  one  of  the  Commandments  can  it  be 
said  that  a  mere  general  profession  of  love  to 
God  and  man  can  be  substituted  for  it.  The 
ingenuity  which  the  human  mind  displays,  the 
sophistries  which  it  employs  in  order  to  make 
what  is  supposed  to  be  expedient  seem  right,  the 
delicate  shading  by  which  it  veils  a  disgraceful 
or  undutiful  act,  the  artifices  to  which  it  con- 
descends, the  self-flatteries  which  it  is  capable  of 
where  conscience  is  concerned,  can  only  be  met 
by  plain,  simple,  distinct  laws  with  great  principles 
behind  them  such  as  we  meet  with  in  the  Ten 
Commandments."     All  honour,  then,  to  those  who 


THE  DECALOGUE  IN  THE  LITURGY    89 

strove  in  the  past  and  strive  in  the  present  to 
make  the  Decalogue  a  living  force  in  the  liturgy 
of  the  synagogue. 

A  reference  has  been  made,  or  rather  a  hint 
given,  to  certain  modern  controversies  regarding 
the  re-introduction  of  the  Decalogue  into  the 
regular  liturgy.  In  all  these  matters,  however, 
controversy  has  a  way  of  softening  with  time  into 
forbearance.  And,  in  a  very  similar  case,  the 
Middle  Ages  supply  a  splendid  instance  of  mutual 
toleration.  The  Jewish  traveller,  Benjamin  of 
Tudela,  visited  Egypt  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
twelfth  century,  and  he  reports  as  follows :  "  Here 
are  two  synagogues,  one  of  the  congregation  of 
Palestine,  called  the  Syrian,  the  other  of  the  Baby- 
lonian  Jews.  They  follow  different  customs  regard- 
ing the  division  of  the  Pentateuch  into  parashioth 
and  sedarim.  The  Babylonians  read  one  pa/rasha 
every  week,  as  is  the  custom  throughout  Spain, 
and  finish  the  whole  of  the  Pentateuch  every  year 
(annual  cycle).  But  the  Syrians  have  the  custom 
of  dividing  every paro.sha  into  three  sedarim,  thus 
completing  the  reading  of  the  whole  Pentateuch 
once  in  three  years  (triennial  cycle)."  And  now 
note  what  follows.  Despite  this  important  liturgi- 
cal difference,  says  Benjamin,  "  they  uphold,  how- 
ever, the  long-established  custom  to  unite  the  two 
congregations  and  to  pray  together  on  the  Re- 
joicing of  the  Law,  and  on  the  feast  of  Pentecost, 
the  day  of  the  Giving  of  the  Law." 

We  should  be  the  better  nowadays  for  something 
of  this  medieval  tolerance.     "  The  law  which  Moses 


90  THE  DECALOGUE  IN  THE  LITURGY 

commanded  unto  us  is  a  heritage  of  the  congrega- 
tion of  Israel."  Jew  may  differ  from  Jew,  but  on 
two  days  in  the  year  Jew  and  Jew  may  and  must 
unite.  Brother  must  rejoice  with  brother  in  the 
Law;  brother  must  stand  by  brother  while  the 
Decalogue  is  again  read  on  the  day  associated  with 
memories  of  Sinai. 


XIII 
BY  THE   WATER-SIDE 

"And  Thou  wilt  cast  (Heb.  Tashlich)  all  their  sins 
into  the  depths  of  the  seas  " — thus  runs  a  line  in 
the  lyric  epilogue  to  the  book  of  the  prophet  Micah. 
A  curious  Jewish  ceremony  has  attached  itself  to 
this  text,  deriving  its  very  name  (Tashlich)  from 
the  first  word  of  the  Hebrew  original.  On  the 
afternoon  of  the  Jewish  New  Year  Festival  it  is 
still  the  custom  for  very  many  to  betake  them- 
selves to  the  sea-shore,  or  to  some  river  or  flowing 
brook,  to  invoke  the  forgiveness  of  sin,  while  re- 
peating verses  such  as  Micah  vii.  19. 

Now  it  is  quite  true  that  the  ceremony  received, 
and  to  a  certain  extent  deserved,  ridicule  and  con- 
demnation. For  some  who  observed  the  custom 
would  cast  pieces  of  bread  and  other  objects  into 
the  water,  or  shake  out  their  garments  into  it,  as 
though  physically  transferring  their  sins  into  the 
scapegoat  river.  With  their  usual  religious  in- 
sight medieval  Habbis,  who  were  the  first  to  know 
of  the  custom,  denounced  and  prohibited  this 
materialisation  of  a  symbolical  rite.  For  it  estab- 
lished a  fictitious  connection  with  superstitions 
which  have  hardly  anything  in  common  with  itself. 
Occasional  or  periodical  expulsions  of  diseases  and 

91 


92  BY  THE  WATER-SIDE 

sins  by  placing  puppets  in  boats  let  loose  to  drift 
seawards— with  such  heathen  ideas  which  have 
continued  to  modern  times,  Tashlich  has  no  real 
connection.  In  ancient  Babylonia  we  read,  on  the 
other  hand,  of  casting  into  the  waters  tablets  on 
which  were  inscribed  men's  trespasses.  With  this 
again  Tashlich  cannot  be  associated,  except  in  so 
far  as  both  imply  a  symbolical  cleansing  from  sin. 
In  the  later  Middle  Ages,  Tashlich  was  explained 
by  a  Midrash  in  which  figure  Abraham  and  Isaac 
— the  two  heroes  of  the  Now  Year  Festival  in  the 
Jewish  liturgy.  Abraham,  so  runs  the  legend,  was 
on  his  way  with  Isaac  to  Moriah  when  the  Satan 
presented  himself  in  the  guise  of  an  exceedingly 
meek  old  man.  "  Foolish  man,"  said  the  Satan  to 
Abraham ;  "  canst  thou  really  believe  that  God 
has  commanded  so  wicked  a  sacrifice  as  thou  art 
about  to  offer  ? "  Abraham  knew  from  these 
words  that  the  man  must  be  the  Satan,  desirous 
of  turning  him  from  obedience  to  God ;  so  he  re- 
buked the  old  man,  who  departed  from  him.  Then 
the  Satan  returned  disguised  as  a  shining  youth. 
Addressing  Isaac  he  said :  "  Knowest  thou  not 
that  thy  foolish  old  father  is  leading  thee  to 
death  ?  My  son,  follow  him  not,  for  he  is  old  and 
witless."  Isaac  repeated  these  words  to  Abraham, 
who  explained  the  true  character  of  their  inter- 
locutor. The  Satan  again  left  them,  but  hurried 
on  in  advance,  and  transformed  himself  into  a 
stream  of  water,  broad  and  deep,  stretching  across 
their  road.  The  patriarch  and  his  son  plunged 
straight  in,  and  the  water  covered  them  to  the 


BY  THE  WATER-SIDE  93 

neck.  Then  Abraham  recognised  the  place  and 
knew  that  there  was  no  natural  river  there  at  all. 
"  It  is  the  Satan,"  cried  Abraham.  "  Beshrew  thee, 
thou  Satan,  and  get  thee  gone."  And  the  Satan 
fled,  finally  discomfited.  Obviously,  this  story  has 
nothing  to  do  with  Tashlich ;  it  became,  however, 
usual  to  find  such  a  connection  and  to  explain  the 
custom  as  designed  "  to  call  to  mind  the  efficacy 
of  the  offering  of  Isaac."  But  the  Midrash  and 
the  theory  have  some  points  of  interest.  For,  we 
can  see  that  the  Jewish  consciousness  was  quite 
alive  to  the  difficulty  presented  by  the  character 
of  the  Akeda  (literally  the  binding  of  Isaac).  It 
put  into  "the  Satan's"  mouth  a  thought  which 
often  troubled  Jewish  readers  of  Genesis,  and  it 
mitigated  the  difficulty  by  directing  attention  less 
to  the  trial  than  to  the  tried,  resting  less  on  what 
God  asked  than  on  what  Abraham  and  Isaac  were 
prepared  to  do,  pointing  to  the  unbending  fidelity 
of  the  father  and  the  loving  assent  of  the  child. 
The  Akeda  thus  became  the  type  of  Israel's  loyalty 
under  trial  and  suffering.  "  Remember,  0  God,  the 
binder  and  the  bound,"  is  the  refrain  of  a  popular 
New  Year's  hymn.  It  was  a  pathetic  appeal 
to  the  "merit  of  the  fathers,"  though  Israel  had 
little  need  to  rest  its  appeal  on  the  past.  Through- 
out the  ages,  Israel  went  on  faithfully  rendering 
himself  up  a  willing  sacrifice.  When  Israel  is 
true  to  the  virtues  of  the  fathers  its  appeal  to 
their  merits  is  efficacious  because  unnecessary. 

Of  praying  by  the  water-side  we  occasionally 
hear  in  the  Bible.     Moses  sang  his  song  by  the 


94  BY  THE  WATER-SIDE 

shores  of  the  Red  Sea ;  Jonah  uttered  his  thanks- 
giving on  a  Mediterranean  coast.  "  By  the  rivers 
of  Babylon,  there  we  sat  down,  yea,  we  wept, 
when  we  remembered  Zion."  Israel  could  not 
sing  the  songs  of  Zion  there,  but  could  weep, 
"and  tears,"  said  the  Rabbi,  "are  an  ever-open 
gate  to  the  mercy-seat."  More  interesting,  how- 
ever, than  these  odd  references,  are  the  evi- 
dences we  find  of  a  fondness  for  praying  by  the 
water-side.  Tertullian  speaks  of  the  orationes 
litorales  of  the  Jews,  i.e.  open  -  air  prayer- 
meetings  by  the  river  bank  or  seashore.  Philo 
tells  us  that  in  times  of  stress,  the  Alexandrians 
prayed  at  the  seashore,  that  being  the  purest 
place.  Josephus  quotes  a  remarkable  decree  of 
Halicarnassus  (on  the  S.W.  coast  of  Asia  Minor). 
It  runs  thus  :  "  The  decree  of  the  Halicarnassians. 
Before  Memnon  the  priest,  the  decree  of  the 
people,  upon  the  motion  of  Marcus  Alexander, 
was  as  follows :  Since  we  have  ever  a  great 
regard  to  piety  towards  God  and  to  holiness, 
following  the  people  of  the  Romans,  who  are 
the  benefactors  of  all  men,  and  what  they  have 
written  to  us  about  a  league  of  friendship  and 
alliance  between  the  Jews  and  our  city,  that 
their  sacred  rites  and  accustomed  feasts  and 
assemblies  may  be  observed  by  them;  we  have 
decreed,  that  as  many  men  and  women  of  the 
Jews  as  wish  to  do  so,  may  celebrate  their 
Sabbaths,  and  perform  their  holy  rites,  accord- 
ing to  the  Jewish  laws,  and  have  their  places  of 
prayer  by  the  seaside,  according  to  the  customs 


BY  THE   WATER-SIDE  95 

of  their  forefathers ;  and  if  any  one,  whether 
a  magistrate  or  private  person,  hinders  them 
from  so  doing,  he  shall  be  liable  to  a  fine,  to 
be  paid  to  the  city." 

It  has  been  suggested  that  Jews  preferred 
the  shore  because  they  required  water  for  their 
many  ritual  purifications.  But  the  theory  is 
unsatisfactory.  In  Palestine  the  synagogues  were 
in  the  centre  of  the  cities,  and  even  in  the 
coast  towns  were  situated  on  the  highest  points 
attainable,  and  must  thus  have  been  as  far  as 
could  be  from  the  actual  shore.  But  in  heathen 
environments,  an  extra-mural  site  was  preferred. 
In  a  typical  Greek  city,  the  Temple  would 
occupy  the  central  position,  and  the  whole  life 
of  the  people  would  turn  round  it.  To  avoid 
idolatrous  contamination,  the  Jew  would  place 
his  synagogue  outside  the  walls.  But  the  ancient 
cities  in  Asia  Minor  followed  the  line  of  sea  or 
river.  An  extra-mural  site  would  therefore  often 
be  identical  with  the  shore  of  river  or  sea. 


XIV 

GOD  AND  MAN 

No  consistent  structure  of  justification  by  faith 
or  works  is  raised  in  the  Jewish  Atonement 
liturgy.  "  What  shall  we  say,  how  shall  we 
justify  ourselves  ?  .  .  .  Thy  right  hand,  O  God, 
is  stretched  out  for  the  penitent."  Do  your 
best  and  leave  the  rest  to  God,  is  the  sum 
of  the  day's  teaching.  Human  regret  and 
amendment,  prayer  and  promise,  condition,  as 
it  were,  God's  pardon ;  they  do  not  command 
or  earn  it.  The  forgiveness  of  sins  is  God's 
prerogative,  but  He  has  shown  man  the  way  to 
Him. 

Judaism  often  refuses  to  accept  either  of  two 
alternatives,  but  tries  to  accept  both,  to  dis- 
cover a  higher  harmony  reconciliatory  of  oppo- 
sites.  To  hold  that  "  good  deeds "  make  easy 
and  certain  the  path  to  heaven  may  land  us 
in  a  mechanical  system  of  external  rites,  and 
weaken  the  consciousness  of  sin.  Penitence  may 
degenerate  into  penance. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  well  for  man  to 
rest  too  completely  in  the  belief  that  atonement 
is  a  mere  phase  of  the  divine  grace.  It  is  not 
well  for  man  to  take  the  statement  of  Exodus 

96 


GOD   AND   MAN  97 

xxxiii.  10:  "I  am  gracious  unto  those  to  whom 
I  am  gracious,  and  I  show  morcy  unto  those 
to  whom  I  show  mercy,"  as  a  complete  enun- 
ciation of  the  relation  of  God  to  His  erring 
world.  Judaism  is  right  in  building  also  on  a 
human  foundation;  in  planting  on  firm  earth 
the  feet  of  the  ladder  by  which  man's  soul  may 
ascend  heavenwards. 

The  Hebrew  word  for  repentance  is  Teshubah, 
which  literally  means  return.  Other  elements 
in  repentance  are  sorrow,  or  regret  (the  literal 
meaning  of  repentance),  and  change  of  heart 
(the  Greek  metanoia),  both  of  which  are  ex- 
pressed in  confession  of  sins.  But  the  Hebrew 
word  Teshuhah,  or  return,  "  emphasises  the 
last  aspect  of  repentance :  its  practical  result. 
The  issue  of  repentance  must  be  a  return  from 
transgression,  from  the  overstepping  of  right, 
from  the  straying  aside  out  of  the  path  of 
righteousness  into  the  devious  byways  of  sin, 
back  once  more  into  the  straight  road  of  duty 
and  unselfishness  and  love.  True  repentance  is 
no  mere  momentary  spasm  of  remorse :  to  be 
worthy  the  name  it  must  influence  and  leave 
its  mark  on  character,  and  therefore  upon  action 
and  upon  life  "  (Montefiore). 

Again,  the  antithesis  may  be  put  in  this 
way.  God  is  transcendent ;  that  is,  He  is  high 
above  and  outside  the  world  of  man.  God 
is  unsearchable,  unreachable.  God's  nature  is 
too  unlike  man's  for  him  to  use,  unless  in  a 
figurative    sense,    anthropomorphic    language   in 


98  GOD   AND   MAN 

describing  the  Deity.  As  Jehuda  Halevi,  when 
in  this  mood,  sang  in  a  hymn  for  the  Day  of 
Atonement : — 

"  God  !  whom  shall  I  compare  to  Thee, 
When  Thou  to  none  canst  likened  be  ? 
Under  what  image  shall  I  dare 
To  picture  Thee,  when  everywhere 
All  Nature's  forms  Thine  impress  bear  ? 

Can  heart  approach,  can  eye  behold 
Thee  in  Thy  righteousness  untold  ? 
Whom  didst  Thou  to  Thy  counsel  call, 
When  there  was  none  to  speak  withal, 
Since  Thou  was  first  and  Lord  of  all  1 " 

Push  this  to  its  logical  outcome,  and  Judaism 
deserves  the  taunt :  "  See  how  far  off  is  the 
God  of  the  Jews  from  them,  they  address  Him 
like  slaves,  they  figure  Him  as  an  autocrat 
standing  aloof,  without  human  sympathies."  But 
Judaism  does  not  push  the  thought  to  its  logical 
consequences.  Such  passages  as  the  one  just 
quoted  simply  emphasise  the  folly  of  likening 
God  too  much  to  man.  The  old  sarcasm  that 
men  in  all  ages  have  made  God  in  their  own 
image  hardly  applies  to  the  Jewish  poets  at 
their  best.  But  Jehuda  Halevi  did  not  close 
his  hymn  without  abandoning  this  lofty,  trans- 
cendent theory.  He  built  a  bridge  across  which 
the  penitent  may  find  his  way,  not  easily  or 
surely,  but  tentatively  and  with  many  a  stumble. 
This  bridge  is  Righteousness ;  from  one  point 
of  view  it  is  the  divine  Law  which  lowers  God 
to  Sinai,  from    another    it    is    man's    obedience 


GOD   AND   MAN  99 

and  service  which  raise  him  to  the  hill- top.  In 
the  same  hymn  our  most  inspired  new-Hebrew 
poet  sings : — 

"  Thy  righteousness  we  can  discern, 
Thy  holy  law  proclaim  and  learn. 
Is  not  Thy  presence  near  alway 
To  them  who  penitently  pray, 
But  far  from  those  who  sinning  stray?" 

This  leads  to  the  other  side  of  the  contrast. 
Does  this  last  line  look  as  though  Jehuda  Halevi 
thought  little  of  sin  ?  Judaism,  whether  for 
good  or  ill,  if  it  erred  at  all  erred  on  the  side 
of  branding  the  sinner.  No,  our  liturgical  poets 
did  not  make  light  of  sin ;  for,  as  another  Jewish 
poet  of  Spain  wrote  in  a  sublime  meditation 
(also  found  in  the  liturgy  of  the  Day  of  Atone- 
ment) : — 

"  Thou,  God,  art  the  Light 
That  shall  shine  in  the  soul  of  the  pure; 
Now  Thou  art  hidden  by  sin,  by  sin  with  its  clouds 

of  night. 
Now  Thou  art  hidden,  but  then,  as  over  the  height, 
Then  shall  Thy  glory  break  through  the  clouds  that 

obscure, 
And  be  seen  in  the  mount  of  the  Lord." 

Would  that  the  whole  of  this  inspiring  poem, 
"  The  Royal  Crown "  of  Solomon  Ibn  Gebriol, 
could  be  faithfully  rendered  into  English !  Fine 
thought  is  here,  and  fiery  phrase,  stanzas  instinct 
with  God,  dark  with  a  consciousness  of  sin, 
bright   with   confidence    in    God's    mercy.      Tho 


100  GOD  AND  MAN 

boldest  figure  in   the   poem   I   may   venture   to 
expand  and  paraphrase  thus : — 

"  When  all  without  is  dark, 

And  former  friends  misprise  ; 
From  them  I  turn  to  Thee, 
And  find  love  in  Thine  eyes. 

When  all  within  is  dark, 

And  I  my  soul  despise  ; 
From  me  I  turn  to  Thee, 

And  find  love  in  Thine  eyea. 

When  all  Thy  face  is  dark, 

And  Thy  just  angers  rise  ; 
From  Thee  I  turn  to  Thee, 

And  find  love  in  Thine  eyes." 

What  a  wealth  of  religious  beauty,  what  an 
armoury  of  spiritual  force,  is  provided  in  one 
single  poem  of  Nachmanides,  written  also  for  the 
Day  of  Atonement.  First  mark  this  thirteenth- 
century  poet's  sense  of  sin ;  Nachmanides,  so  far 
from  slurring  it  over,  almost  over-deepens  the 
darkness  of  its  cloud. 

"  Now  conscience-stricken,  humbled  to  the  dust, 
Doubting  himself,  in  Thee  alone  his  trust, 
He  shrinks  in  terror  back,  for  God  is  just — 
How  can  a  sinner  hope  to  reach  the  King  ? " 

But  here  the  Jewish  road  turns.  God  is  merci- 
ful, if  the  sinner  is  conscious  of  his  guilt.  He 
offers  His  grace  freely,  for  when  man  has 
worked  out  his  own  salvation  in  part,  with 
what  bountiful  mercy  does  God  finish  the  recon- 
ciliation which  man  has  so  weakly,  so  inefficiently 


GOD   AND   MAN  101 

begun !  Nachinanides,  of  course,  held  with 
all  other  exponents  of  Judaism,  that  the  true 
reconciliation  only  ends  with  amendment,  that 
a  noble  life  counts  more  than  an  eloquent 
prayer.  But  in  this  hymn  he  lays  his  stress  on 
feeling;  he  sees  that  man's  fulfilment  can  never 
equal  his  ideals ;  the  task  is  greater  than  his 
power  of  accomplishment.  And  so  Nachmanides 
speaks  of  confession,  of  the  sinner's  new  dis- 
position to  right,  rather  than  of  any  possible 
proportion  between  bettered  act  and  penitent 
intention.     Thus  he  continues : — 

"  Oh,  be  Thy  mercy  in  the  balance  laid, 
To  hold  Thy  servant's  sins  more  lightly  weighed, 
"When,  his  confession  penitently  made, 
He  answers  for  his  guilt  before  the  King. 

Thine  is  the  love,  0  God,  and  Thine  the  grace, 
That  holds  the  sinner  in  its  mild  embrace  ; 
Thine,  the  forgiveness,  bridging  o'er  the  space 
Twixt  man's  work  and  the  task  set  by  the  King." 

And  beyond  the  doctrine  taught,  would  hymns 
like  this,  and  many  others  which  fill  the  Day  of 
Atonement  liturgy,  fail  to  move  the  worshippers' 
hearts,  could  they  but  understand  them  ?  These 
hymns  are  not  designedly  didactic,  only  inci- 
dentally do  they  lay  down  the  Jewish  belief  on 
sin  and  atonement,  on  God  and  man;  they  are 
in  essence  the  cry  of  contrite  and  beautiful  souls, 
yearning  for  God,  for  His  presence,  for  His  light, 
a  cry  alas !  all  but  inarticulate  to-day.  But 
still  we  may  echo  where  we  cannot  sing  our- 
selves.    Fain  would  one  believe  that  many  a  Jew. 


102  GOD  AND  MAN 

pouring  out  his  heart  before  the  Lord  on  the  Day 
of  Atonement,  may  feel  the  power  and  echo 
the  aspiration  of  the  following  lines,  written  by 
Jehuda  Halevi  for  the  great  day.  Nowhere, 
not  even  in  Newman's  famous  hymn,  are  the 
relations  between  God  and  man  more  inspiringly 
expressed  in  so  few  lines : — 

"  So  lead  me  that  I  may 
Thy  sovereign  will  obey. 

Make  pure  my  heart  to  seek  Thy  truth  divine  ; 
AVhen  burns  my  wound,  be  Thou  with  healing  near, 
Answer  me,  Lord  !  for  sore  distress  is  mine, 
And  say  unto  Thy  servant,  I  am  here  ! 

0  would  that  I  might  be 

A  servant  unto  Thee, 

Thou  God  by  all  adored  ; 

Then,  though  by  friends  out-cast, 

Thy  hand  would  hold  me  fast, 

And  draw  me  near  to  Thee,  my  King  and  Lord." 


XV 

"CHAD   GADYA" 

"  Then  came  the  Holy  One,  blessed  be  He,  and  slew 
the  Angel  of  Death  that  slew  the  slaughterer 
that  killed  the  ox  that  drew  the  water  that 
quenched  the  fire  that  burned  the  stick  that 
beat  the  dog  that  bit  the  cat  that  ate  the  kid 
which  my  father  bought  for  two  zuzim.  One 
only  kid,  one  only  kid"  {Chad  Gadya).  Thus 
runs  the  last  paragraph  of  the  famous  "Song 
of  the  Kid,"  "now  known,"  as  Mr.  G.  A.  Kohut 
rightly  says,  "  to  have  been  borrowed  from,  or 
fashioned  after,  a  popular  German  ballad,  the 
prototype  of  which  seems  to  have  been  an  old 
French  song." 

The  anonymous  author  who,  at  the  close  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  appended  the  "Song  of  the 
Kid  "  to  the  Passover  Haggadah,  was  a  true  poet. 
He  not  only  saw  that  beneath  this  jingle  lay  a 
deep  symbolical  motive,  but  he  perceived,  too, 
that  this  motive  was  identical  with  the  central 
idea  of  the  whole  narrative  of  the  Passover  which 
precedes  it. 

Some  readers  will  at  once  shake  their  wise 
heads  at  this  suggestion.  They  will  urge  that 
the  whole   thing   is   a   child's   story,  that  it   has 


104  "CHAD  GADYA" 

many  parallels  in  the  literature  of  the  nursery, 
and  that  to  laboriously  seek  a  moral  in  trifles 
of  this  kind  is  like  crushing  a  butterfly  under  a 
steam  hammer. 

Now  if  it  were  indeed  true  that  the  Chad 
Oadya  or  any  of  its  parallels  had  been  current 
for  ages  in  the  ranks  of  Jewish  children,  I 
should  be  the  first  to  protest  against  allegorising 
away  its  lisping  quaintness  just  because  the 
poem  had  crept  into  our  liturgy.  But  what  are 
the  facts  ?  First  and  foremost,  there  was  hardly 
such  a  thing  as  a  Jewish  child-literature  at  all. 
This  is  not  strange  when  one  remembers  that 
the  unravelling  of  fables,  riddles,  and  parables 
was  regarded  by  Jews  of  all  ages  as  work  not 
for  children,  but  for  the  wisest  of  men.  The 
Jew  always  liked  his  folk-lore  to  have  a  moral, 
and  this  in  itself  made  it  hard  for  such  folk-lore 
to  be  the  property  of  the  child.  This  remark 
applies  to  others  besides  Jews.  It  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  only  in  modern  times  have  iEsop 
and  Bidpai  fallen  into  the  possession  of  the 
young.  They  were  once  the  food  of  philosophers, 
not  the  pap  of  infants.  So  little  of  child-literature 
is  there  in  Jewish  records  that  one  can  scarcely 
discover  even  one  genuine  Jewish  lullaby.  The 
"  Cradle  Songs "  printed  in  the  Jewish  Encyclo- 
pedia fully  confirm  this  conclusion.  Hence  I 
feel  quite  unable  to  assent  to  the  view  of  Mr. 
Kohut  and  most  others  that  the  Chad  Oadya 
is  "simply  a  Jewish  nursery  rhyme." 

Not  only  is  it  impossible  to  produce  from  Jewish 


"CHAD   GADYA"  105 

sources  any  nursery  parallels  to  Chad  Gadya, 
but  of  Chad  Gadya  itself  only  the  remotest  hint 
has  been  discovered,  even  in  the  literature  of 
Jewish  adults,  until  the  close  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  I  am  not  now  alluding  to  hymns  or 
parables  of  the  cumulative  type,  for  in  Dayenu 
we  have  what  is  probably  a  rather  old  form,  of 
which  one  may  detect  a  clear  trace  in  the 
Midrash  Rabbah.  There  is  also  a  faint  simi- 
larity between  Chad  Gadya  and  the  following 
Talmudic  parable:  "A  mountain  is  strong,  Iron 
cleaves  it ;  Iron  is  strong,  fire  melts  it ;  Fire  is 
strong,  water  quenches  it;  Water  is  strong, 
clouds  absorb  it ;  Clouds  are  strong,  the  Wind 
scatters  them ;  the  Wind  is  strong,  the  Body 
carries  it ;  the  Body  is  strong,  Fear  rends  it ; 
Fear  is  strong,  Wine  overpowers  it ;  Wine  is 
strong,  sleep  conquers  it ;  Death  is  stronger  than 
all,  yet  Charity  dclivereth  from  Death"  (Baba 
Bathra,  10a).  Yet  the  parallel  between  this  and 
Chad  Gadya,  the  one  a  moral  parable  the 
other  an  animal  fable,  is  only  remote.  In  the 
Talmudic  parable  the  ideas  of  Nemesis  and  of 
the  Divine  Providence  are  equally  absent.  The 
fact  that  Chad  Gadya  is  composed  in  Chaldaic, 
is  no  proof  of  antiquity.  Several  similar  j*  ux 
d*  esprit  were  written  at  various  late  dates  in 
similar  mongrel  Aramaic — in  fact,  the  other 
addition  to  the  Haggadah,  the  "I  know  one" 
cumulation,  also  drops  into  Aramaic  occasionally. 
That  the  Chad  Gadya  is  late  is  probable  also 
from    the    peculiarity   that   the   whole  is   full   of 


106  "CHAD   GADYA" 

marked  assonances  amounting  almost  to  genuine 
rhymes.  No  old  Chaldaic  composition  presents 
this  feature  so  prominently.  It  is  possible  that 
the  translator  wrote  in  Chaldaic  because  he 
wished  to  give  an  antique  look  to  his  modern 
rendering  of  a  non-Jewish  song.  But  it  is  not 
difficult  to  suggest  another  reason  why  the 
translator  of  the  Chad  Gadya  chose  Aramaic 
rather  than  Hebrew  as  his  medium.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  the  Seder  opens  with  a  pas- 
sage in  Aramaic.  What  more  natural  than  for 
the  interpolator  of  the  Chad  Gadya  to  close  the 
Seder  with  a  passage  in  Aramaic  also  ?  There 
is  even  some  distant  similarity  in  the  message 
given  by  the  two  passages.  An  opening  sentence 
of  the  Haggadah  reads :  "  This  year  we  are 
slaves,  next  year  may  we  be  free."  The  closing 
phrase  of  the  Chad  Gadya  runs  :  "  Then  came 
the  Holy  One,  Blessed  be  He,  and  slew  the 
Angel  of  Death."  In  both  the  idea  of  Providence 
is  paramount :  the  idea  that  in  the  good  time 
to  come  troubles  will  cease  and  God's  rule  on 
earth  be  established. 

It  is,  I  am  well  aware,  a  matter  of  profound 
difficulty  to  explain  the  original  growth  of  cumu- 
lative stories.  But  in  point  of  fact,  the  Chad 
Gadya  is,  from  the  Jewish  standpoint,  precisely 
one  of  those  cases  in  which  the  origin  of  the 
poem  is  of  less  import  than  the  interpretation 
put  upon  it  by  those  who  admired  and  cherished 
it,  and  converted  it  into  a  devotional  hymn.  It 
was  not   a   spontaneous   creation   of  the   people, 


"CHAD    GADYA"  107 

but  a  late  literary  adaptation  set  in  an  archaic 
and  artificial  idiom,  and  modified  from  its  origi- 
nal, as  we  shall  see,  in  a  very  curious  and 
sophisticated  way.  Possibly  the  child  element 
had  something  to  do  with  its  introduction  into 
the  Haggadah — it  may  have  seemed  justifiable 
to  adapt  a  nursery  rhyme  for  use  in  a  ser- 
vice designed  for  children.  But  I  doubt  this. 
First  there  is  no  evidence  whatever  that  the 
adaptor  ever  knew  the  poem  as  a  nursery  song; 
secondly,  the  difficult  idiom  is  hardly  one  which 
would  have  been  chosen  for  children ;  and 
lastly  the  jingle  appears  at  the  very  ter- 
mination of  the  service,  when  the  children  arc 
mostly  asleep.  In  the  seventeenth  century  it  is 
the  moralist  and  maggid,  not  the  mother  and 
nursery-maid,  that  use  the  Chad  Gadya  as  a 
familiar  theme. 

Now  as  to  the  sophistication.  Many  writers 
have  pointed  out  numerous  parallels  to  the  Chad 
Gadya,  and  lately  that  promising  young  scholar, 
Mr.  G.  A.  Kohut,  has  written  well  and  learnedly 
on  the  subject.  But  I  think  that  most  of  these 
collectors  of  parallels  have  missed  a  remarkable 
fact,  pointed  out,  if  I  remember  aright,  by  M. 
Gaston,  Paris,  in  1872.  Yet  the  fact  is  of  the 
first  importance  in  understanding  the  motives 
that  led  to  the  introduction  of  the  Chad  Gadya 
into  the  Passover-service. 

In  most  of  the  real  parallels  to  the  Chad 
Gadya,  there  is  much  stress  laid  on  the  unwill- 
ingness of  the    various   forces  to    play   the   pails 


108  "CHAD   GADYA" 

allotted  to  them.  To  cite  one  instance  only,  from 
the  nearest  parallel  to  Chad  Gadya,  viz.:  "The 
old  Woman  and  her  Pig"— "Cat!  Cat!  kill  rat; 
rat  won't  gnaw  rope ;  rope  won't  hang  butcher ; 
butcher  won't  kill  ox;  ox  won't  drink  water; 
water  won't  quench  fire;  fire  won't  burn  stick; 
stick  won't  beat  dog ;  dog  won't  bite  pig ;  piggy 
won't  get  over  the  style — and  I  shan't  get  home 
to-night."  This  is  a  typical  instance;  and  the 
refusal  of  the  various  characters  to  act,  their 
resistance,  is  of  the  very  essence  of  this  and 
parallel  stories.  But  in  Chad  Gadya  the  position 
is  absolutely  reversed.  In  that  poem  the  agents 
display  no  manner  of  unwillingness  to  perform 
the  work  of  destruction,  to  exhibit  their  mastery 
over  their  inferiors.  They  act  after  their  kind. 
The  writer  of  Chad  Gadya  might  have  been 
compiling  a  Midrashic  expansion  of  the  fiftieth 
chapter  of  Jeremiah  :  (verses  17-20),  "  Israel  is  a 
scattered  sheep  ;  the  lions  have  driven  him  away  : 
first  the  King  of  Assyria  devoured  him,  and  last 
this  Nebuchadnezzar,  King  of  Babylon,  hath 
broken  his  bones.  .  .  .  Therefore,  I  will  punish  the 
King  of  Babylon  .  .  .  Slay  all  her  bullocks !  .  .  . 
I  will  kindle  a  fire  in  his  cities.  ...  A  sword 
is  upon  the  Chaldeans.  ...  A  drought  is  upon 
her  waters  and  they  shall  bo  dried  up.  .  .  . 
the  wild  beasts  of  the  desert  shall  dwell  there." 
In  the  Chad  Gadya,  as  in  Jeremiah,  the  char- 
acters play  the  part  of  destiny,  they  are  links  in 
the  chain  of  causes  and  effects,  at  the  end  of 
which  is  the  divine  will,  directing  and  controlling, 


"CHAD   GADYA"  109 

if  not  now,  at  all  events  in  some  good  time  to 
come. 

This  remarkable  and  wholly  unique  feature  of 
the  Chad  Gadya,  its  treatment  of  the  various 
agencies  as  acting  willingly,  or  if  unwillingly 
only  so  in  the  sense  that  they  are  moved  by  an 
inexorable  and  fatal  necessity  to  do  their  part — 
this,  I  maintain,  clearly  solves  the  enigma  of  the 
presence  of  the  poem  in  the  Seder  -  service. 
Every  enemy  of  Israel,  in  the  adaptor's  theory, 
acts  after  his  kind,  destroying  Israel  and  Israel's 
other  destroyers.  But  yet  all  these  fatal  forces 
are  really  in  the  control  of  God;  they  are  His 
instruments,  and  in  the  end  will  be  blunted  by 
His  love  for  His  world.  Israel  is  undoubtedly, 
in  the  adaptor's  view,  the  kid,  the  hero  of  the 
concatenated  drama. 

Equally,  without  doubt,  the  introducer  of 
Chad  Gadya  into  the  Haggadah  meant  to  typify 
by  the  other  characters  successive  rulers  of  the 
destiny  of  the  world.  But  it  is  absurd  to  hold 
that  tho  writer  intended  the  allegory  to  be  ex- 
plained literally  and  in  detail.  Lebrecht  in  1731, 
published  an  elaborate  solution  of  the  Enigma 
as  he  and  many  others  termed  it.  The  Kid  is 
Israel;  the  two  coins,  Aaron  and  Moses  (who 
were  the  means  by  which  tho  father,  God,  bought 
the  kid,  Israel,  from  Egypt) ;  the  Cat  is  Assyria ; 
the  Dog,  Babylon ;  tho  stick,  Persia ;  the  Fire, 
Greece,  or  rather  Macedonia ;  the  Water,  Rome ; 
the  Ox,  the  Saracen  power;  the  Butcher,  the 
Crusaders;   the  Angel   of  Death,  Turkey,   whom 


110  "CHAD   GADYA" 

God  will  in  the  end  destroy,  and  then  restore 
the  Jews  to  Palestine.  How  modern  this  last 
suggestion  seems. 

Lebrecht's  fanciful  explanation  has  won  more 
general  acceptance  than  it  deserved.  It  is  cer- 
tainly far-fetched  and  unconvincing.  But  Chris- 
tian Andreas  Teuben  fell  into  the  opposite  error 
when,  in  his  quaintly-named  pamphlet  Chad  Gadya 
lo  Israel,  he  denied  that  the  story  has  anything 
to  do  with  Israel.  In  its  origin,  certainly  it 
had  no  such  connection,  but  the  adaptor  of  it 
for  the  Passover  Liturgy  clearly  did  have  before 
his  mind  a  panorama  of  the  History  of  Israel 
and  the  world  as  Israel  was  affected  by  it.  As 
to  the  details  of  the  application,  Teuben  rightly 
says  :  "  As  many  Jews,  so  many  explanations." 
The  ten  plagues  have  been  ingeniously  read 
into  the  Chad  Gadya,  and  so  has  the  sacrifice 
of  Isaac.  It  is  not  wonderful  that  preachers 
and  maggidim  have  offered  innumerable  explan- 
ations of  the  Chad  Gadya.  The  poem  is  m 
truth  a  summary  of  the  Enigma  of  Life,  and 
who  shall  claim  that  he  possesses  the  one 
and  only  clue  to  that  great  mystery  ?  The  solu- 
tions of  the  riddle  form  another  Chad  Gadya 
more  hopelessly  involved  than  the  one  which 
they  started  out  to  unravel. 


XVI 

MYRTLE 

English  poets  have  not  extracted  much  fragrance 
from  the  myrtle,  probably  because  the  shrub  does 
not  grow  wild  in  the  British  Isles.  Byron  preferred 
the  youthful  forehead  garlanded  with  myrtle  and 
ivy  to  the  older  brow  crowned  with  laurel : — 

"  O  talk  not  to  me  of  a  name  great  in  story, 
The  days  of  our  youth  are  the  days  of  our  glory  ; 
And  the  myrtle  and  ivy  of  sweet  two-and-twenty 
Are  worth  all  your  laurels,  tho'  ever  so  plenty." 

But  Milton  calls  the  berries  of  the  myrtle 
"  harsh  and  crude."  The  prottiest  allusion  to 
the  myrtle  in  an  English  lyric  occurs  in  Mar- 
lowe's "  Passionate  Shepherd,"  but  here  it  almost 
seems  that  the  exigencies  of  rhyme  led  to  its 
introduction.  The  Shepherd  invites  his  fair  one : 
"  Come  live  with  me  and  be  my  Love,"  and 
among  other  inducements  he  offers : — 

"  There  will  I  make  thee  beds  of  roses 
And  a  thousand  fragrant  posies, 
A  cap  of  flowers  and  a  kirtle 
Embroidered  all  with  leaves  of  myrtle." 

Some    attribute    these    lines    to    Shakespeare, 
who  more  than  once  pictures  Venus  and  Adonis 


112  MYRTLE 

love-making  in  a  myrtle  grove.     Every  one  re- 
members, too,  the  beautiful  lines  beginning : — 

"  As  it  fell  upon  a  day 
In  the  merry  month  of  May, 
Sitting  in  a  pleasant  shade 
Which  a  grove  of  myrtles  made  ; 
Beasts  did  leap,  and  birds  did  sing, 
Trees  did  grow,  and  plants  did  spring  ; 
Everything  did  banish  moan, 
Save  the  nightingale  alone." 

In  Tennyson's  "  Sweet  Little  Eden  "  also : — 

"  Fairily-delicate  palaces  shine 
Mixt  with  myrtle  and  clad  with  vine." 

The  Roman  poets,  more  accustomed  to  the 
wild  species  of  the  myrtle — for  it  is  found  every- 
where in  the  Mediterranean  region — made  better 
play  with  the  dark  green  shrub.  The  Greeks 
held  it  sacred  to  Aphrodite,  and  crowned  with 
it  the  victor  in  a  bloodless  fight.  Myrtle  bushes 
are  usually  low,  but  sometimes  they  attain,  as 
in  the  Lebanon,  to  a  height  of  twelve  feet,  thus 
qualifying  for  the  description  "tree."  The  most 
southern  range  of  Lebanon  is  named  "  Jebel 
Rihan,"  the  mound  of  myrtles.  Myrtle  flowers 
are  white,  the  berries  become  blue  -  black  or 
purple;  the  Talmud  calls  the  colour  black.  The 
poets  of  Italy  and  Greece,  however,  fall  far 
behind  the  Jewish  in  their  fanciful  treatment 
of  the  myrtle.  And  this  is  natural  enough. 
The  fragrant  leaves  of  the  evergreen  add  aroma 
to  the  entwined  palm  branch  on  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles,  and  Hebrew  poets  of  all  ages  have 


MYRTLE  113 

used  the  myrtlo  as  a  type  of  sensuous  sweet- 
ness. There  is  something  Eastern  in  this. 
From  myrtle  a  wine  is  made,  and  before  the 
introduction  of  other  spices  like  pepper,  it 
was  a  favourite  condiment  in  Oriental  cookery. 
The  Arab  mother  still  stuffs  her  infant's  couch 
with  myrtle  leaves,  and  bathes  her  babe's  soft 
flesh  in  water  distilled  with  myrtle  oil.  Graetz 
held  that  the  verse  in  Psalm  cxviii.  usually 
rendered :  "  Fasten  the  festal  victim  with  cords  to 
the  horns  of  the  altar,"  ought  to  run  "  Bind  ye  gar- 
lands with  myrtles  unto  the  horns  of  the  altar." 

Whether  this  be  right  or  not,  the  myrtle  has 
been  a  favourite  festive  emblem  with  Jews. 
In  Jehuda  Halevi's  love  poems  we  often  come 
across  the  myrtle.  Myrtles  were  used  in  ancient 
Judea  in  the  festoons  above  the  bridal  canopy, 
and  Rabbis  danced  before  the  marriage  proces- 
sion bearing  myrtle  branches.  When  the  custom 
grew  up  of  crowning  the  Scrolls  of  the  Penta- 
teuch on  the  day  of  the  Rejoicing  of  the  Law, 
coronets  of  myrtle  as  well  as  of  silver  and  gold 
were  used.  It  was  not  till  after  the  fourteenth 
century  that  the  conventional  metal  "  crown " 
for  the  Scrolls  was  added  as  a  regular  ornament. 
The  person  "  called-up "  to  the  Law  was  crowned 
with  a  myrtle  wreath  on  Simchath  Torah,  the 
day  of  the  Bridegroom  of  the  Law.  Though 
after  the  destruction  of  the  Temple  the  bridal 
crowns  wore  for  awhile  abolished,  we  find  the 
custom  reappearing  in  the  Middle  Ages.  On 
the  Sabbath  after  the  wedding,  the  bridegroom 

H 


114  MYRTLE 

was  crowned  with  myrtles.  This  accounts  for 
the  prominence  of  myrtles  in  Jehuda  Halevi's 
songs,  intended  for  liturgical  use  on  such  occa- 
sions. In  one  of  these  songs,  he  calls  the  happy 
young  husband's  joyous  group  of  friends  "his 
canopy  of  myrtles."  When  the  bride's  name 
happens  to  be  Esther  (Hadassa,  or  Myrtle),  the 
poet  luxuriates  in  the  image : — 

"  To  Myrtle,  myrtles  waft  a  breeze, 
The  pangs  of  love-sick  love  to  ease." 

It  is  said  that  the  large  Jewish  betrothal 
rings,  such  as  one  sees  at  South  Kensington, 
held  sprigs  of  the  same  plant ;  and  a  keen- 
scented  friend  of  mine  has  told  me  that  he 
can  still  detect  the  faint  odour  of  myrtle  in 
one  of  the  old  rings.  Verily,  "  Many  waters 
cannot  quench  love."  Perhaps  equally  imagina- 
tive are  the  pious  Jews  who  reserve  the  myrtle 
from  the  Lulab  for  use  in  a  dried  condition, 
as  "sweet-smelling  spice"  at  the  "habdala"  on 
Saturday  nights. 

If  we  go  back  from  the  medieval  Hebrew  poets 
to  the  Midrash,  quaint  thoughts  on  the  myrtle 
reward  our  search.  All  of  these  may  also  be 
found  in  the  liturgy  for  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles. 
The  Midrash  treats  the  myrtle  not  so  much 
from  the  poetical  as  from  the  emblematic  and 
moral  side.  Myrtle  typifies  Jacob  and  Leah, 
and  of  course  Esther.  " '  Myrtle '  which  spreads 
fragrance  as  Esther  spread  grace ;  '  Myrtle '  which 
fades  not  in  winter,  but  is  fresh  always."     Esther's 


MYRTLE  115 

real  name  (as  already  mentioned)  was  "  Myrtle." 
Zunz  long  ago  pointed  out  that  Jewesses  in  the 
Middle  Ages  were  fond  of  borrowing  their  names 
from  flowers.  Flora,  Myrrha,  Bliimchen,  Rosa, 
Fiori,  and  others  of  the  same  style,  often  occur 
in  early  Jewish  name-lists.  To  return  to  the 
Midrash  on  Myrtle:  "Just  as  the  myrtle  has 
a  sweet  odour  and  a  bitter  taste,  so  Esther  was 
sweet  to  Mordecai  and  bitter  to  Hainan."  (Else- 
where, the  Rabbis  speak  of  the  myrtle  as  taste- 
less. They  are  thinking  of  different  varieties, 
as  may  be  seen  from  the  Talmud  Succah,  folio 
31b.  The  aromatic  taste  of  the  myrtle -berry 
may  be  understood  when  one  remembers  that 
the  eucalyptus  and  clove  belong  to  the  same 
order  as  the  myrtle.)  "  Bitter  and  sweet  will 
join  as  dainties  for  His  palate,  who  stood  among 
the  myrtles,"  sings  Kalir,  in  allusion  to  this 
Midrash  and  to  Zechariah  i.  8,  where  the 
angel-warrior  on  a  red  horse  stood  in  a  glen  of 
myrtles  beneath  Mount  Olivet.  The  liturgy  also 
uses  the  Midrashic  parallel  of  the  myrtle  to  the 
eye.  The  citron  atones  for  heart-sins,  the  palm 
for  stiff'  -  backed  pride,  the  willows  for  unholy 
speech,  the  myrtle  for  the  lusts  of  the  eye. 
The  comparison  to  the  eye  is  peculiarly  apt. 
Not  only  does  the  elongated  oval  leaf  of  some 
species  resemble  the  eye,  but  when  held  up  to 
the  light,  it  looks  not  unlike  the  iris.  This 
effect  is  produced  by  the  little  oil-dots  in  the 
leaf.  The  Rabbis,  like  the  Targum,  explained 
the  'boughs  of  thick  trees"  of  Leviticus  xxiii.  40, 


116  MYRTLE 

to  mean  thick  -  leaved  myrtles  with  clustering 
berries,  though  for  ritual  use  too  many  berries 
were  unlawful.  Nehemiah  (who,  however,  men- 
tions both  "thick  trees"  and  "myrtles,"  viii.  15), 
and  Josephus  (Antiq.,  III.  x.  4)  bear  witness 
that  myrtles  were  associated  with  the  festival 
of  Tabernacles.  The  last-named  authority  in- 
forms us  that  the  myrtles  were  carried  in  the 
hand,  a  fact  not  clearly  stated,  though  implied, 
in  Leviticus.  It  was  because  of  this  custom 
that  Plutarch  confused  the  Jewish  feast  with  a 
Dionysian  rite,  for  the  devotees  of  Dionysus,  or 
Bacchus,  carried  wands  wreathed  in  ivy  and  vine 
leaves,  topped  with  pine-cones.  "Bearing  wands 
wreathed  with  leaves,  fair  boughs  and  palms, 
after  the  manner  of  the  feast  of  Tabernacles, 
they  offered  up  hymns  of  thanksgiving,"  says 
the  author  of  the  Second  Book  of  Maccabees 
(x.  G)  of  Judas  and  his  men. 

One  other  Talmudic  thought  must  be  men- 
tioned, for  it  leads  us  back  to  Isaiah:  "He  who 
has  learned  and  fails  to  teach  is  like  a  myrtle 
in  the  desert "  (Rosh  Hashana,  fol.  23a). 

"  Full  many  a  flower  is  born  to  blush  unseen, 
And  waste  its  fragrance  on  the  desert  air." 

Isaiah,  in  his  picture  of  the  return  from  the 
Babylonian  exile,  paints  the  whole  desert  as  a 
garden  filled  with  joyous  men.  Nature  becomes 
a  worthier  scene  for  the  redemption.  The  desert 
is  not  merely  dotted  with  oases,  as  Marti  ex- 
plains;   it   is    transformed    into    one  vast,   well- 


MYRTLE  117 

watered  garden,  filled  with  myrtles  in  place  of 
thorns.  Thus  the  wilderness  stretching  between 
Babylon  and  Judea  was  to  share  in  the  renewal 
of  the  heavens  and  the  earth.  The  change  was 
to  occur  on  a  mighty  scale,  that  all  the  earth 
might  see  and  wonder.  If  the  desert  was  so 
transfigurod  what  (though  the  prophet  does  not 
add  this)  must  be  the  glories  of  the  new  Canaan  ! 

"  The  poor  and  needy  seek  water  and  there  is  none, 

And  their  tongue  faileth  for  thirst; 
I  the  Lord  will  answer  them, 

I  the  God  of  Israel  will  not  forsake  them. 
I  will  open  rivers  on  the  bare  heights, 

And  fountains  in  the  midst  of  the  valleys  ; 
I  will  make  the  wilderness  a  pool  of  water, 

And  the  dry  land  flowing  springs. 
I  will  plant  in  the  wilderness  the  cedar, 

The  acacia,  the  myrtle,  and  the  oleaster, 
I  will  set  there  the  fir,  the  pine  and  the  cypress  ; 

That  they  may  see  and  know  and  consider 
That  the  hand  of  the  Lord  hath  done  this, 

And  the  Holy  One  of  Israel  has  created  it." 

(Isaiah  xli.  17-20.) 

And  so  again,  when  the  trees  wave  their  boughs 
and  nature  and  man  combine  to  sing  a  new  song 
to  the  Lord, 

"  Ye  shall  go  out  with  joy 

And  be  led  forth  with  peace, 
Tin'  mountains  shall  break  forth  before  you  into  singing, 

And  all  the  trees  shall  clap  their  hands. 
Instead  of  the  thorn  shall  come  up  the  fir-tree, 
And  instead  of  the  brier  the  myrtle. 
And  it  shall  be  to  the  Lord  for  a  name, 
An  everlasting  sign  that  shall  not  be  cut  off/' 

(lv.  12-13). 


118  MYRTLE 

Yet  we  are  told  that  the  poets  of  the  nineteenth 
century  first  taught  men  the  lessons  of  nature. 
The  ancient  prophet  felt  the  parallel  between 
human  moods  and  natural  phenomena.  Isaiah 
was  not  the  least  of  those  who  experienced  this 
analogy,  and  in  the  lines  just  cited  the  poetry 
of  the  myrtle  reaches  its  noblest  flight. 


XVII 

WILLOWS    OF   THE    BROOK 

It  is  antecedently  improbable  that  a  sad  associa- 
tion was  intended  in  the  case  of  any  of  the 
emblems  chosen  for  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles, 
pre-eminently  a  season  of  joy.  The  "  willows  of 
the  brook  "  were  no  less  cheering  than  the  palm, 
the  myrtle,  or  the  fruit  of  a  goodly  tree.  The 
"  weeping  willows,"  which  are  beloved  of  the 
writers  of  dirges,  and  form  a  pensive  refrain  to 
poems  like  the  "  Lady  of  Shalott,"  have  only  this 
of  melancholy  about  them,  that  they  may  form 
dark  bowers  and  encircle  black  pools.  The 
willows  referred  to  in  Scripture  are  mostly  to 
be  identified  with  poplars,  such  as  still  occur, 
rather  extensively  for  a  treeless  land,  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  Jordan  valley.  The  poplar, 
like  the  willow,  grows  best  in  damp  soil. 

"  Upon  the  willows  in  tlie  midst  thereof 
We  hanged  our  harps." — Psalm  exxxvii.  2. 

Here  the  reference  may  be  to  the  willow 
proper  (the  SaNx  Babylonica),  rather  than  to  the 
Populus  Euphratica.  In  Isaiah  xliv.  the  willow 
is   probably   the   "  willow   of  the   brook "  which, 


120         WILLOWS  OF  THE  BROOK 

unlike  the  grasses  and  unflowering  herbs  that 
only  spring  up  in  full  crop  after  the  early  rain 
in  Syria,  luxuriantly  adorns  the  water-courses 
and  the  Dead  Sea  Valley. 

"  Fear  not,  0  Jacob,  My  servant, 
And  thou  Jeshurun,  whom  I  have  chosen  ; 
For  I  will  pour  water  upon  him  that  is  thirsty 
And  streams  upon  the  dry  ground  : 
I  will  pour  My  spirit  upon  thy  seed, 
And  My  blessing  upon  thine  offspring, 
And  they  shall  spring  up  among  the  grass 
As  willows  by  the  water-courses  ; 
One  shall  say,  I  am  the  Lord's 

And  another  shall  call  himself  by  the  name  of  Jacob." 

(Isaiah  xliv.  2-4.) 

Many  writers  render  Araba  in  this  passage 
also  "  poplar  "  and  not  "  willow."  The  meaning 
is  anyhow  clear.  It  is  the  true  Zionism  that  the 
prophet  enunciates,  a  spiritual  revival  in  which 
Israel  wins  the  world  to  God,  for  the  last  two 
lines  allude  to  the  proselytes  who  are  to  enjoy  the 
streams  of  God's  love  with  and  through  Israel. 

A  probable  identification  (originally  suggested 
by  Schwarz),  sees  in  the  "  Brook  of  the  Willows  " 
(Isaiah  xv.  7),  the  Wadi-el-Ahsa,  north  of  Kerak. 
This  was  the  "  Valley  of  the  Waterpits,"  between 
Edom  and  Moab,  where  Elisha  wrought  his 
miracle  (II.  Kings  iii.  16),  of  the  rain,  blood-red 
in  the  ditches,  as  the  morning  sun  shone  on  the 
water.  The  prophet  Ezekiel,  too,  had  a  fine 
reference  to  the  willow,  though  it  is  doubtful 
whether  he  does  not  mean  the  "  vine."     It  occurs 


WILLOWS  OF  THE  BROOK         121 

in  the  17th  chapter  of  Ezekiel,  in  the  parable  of 
the  two  eagles.  The  "  Great  Eagle  "  (Nebuchad- 
nezzar) "  came  into  Lebanon  and  took  the  highest 
branch  of  the  cedar  "  (Jehoiachin).  This  was  in 
590  B.C.  or  thereabouts.  Then  the  "Great  Eagle" 
took  of  the  seed  of  the  land  (Zedekiah),  "  placed 
it  by  great  waters,  and  set  it  as  a  willow  tree." 
It  grew  and  "became  a  spreading  vine,"  which 
treacherously  bent  its  roots  and  branches  towards 
another  "  Great  Eagle  "  (Egypt)  thus  earning  de- 
struction at  Nebuchadnezzar's  hand.  The  figure 
is  not  clear.  But  Zafzafa  (the  word  here  ren- 
dered "  willow  ")  occurs  nowhere  else  in  Scripture, 
and  though  the  similar  Arabic  word  signifies 
"  willow  "  it  seems  best  to  take  it  in  Ezekiel  in  a 
generic  sense  as  "plant."  In  Ezekiel  xix.  10,  we 
read  of  a  "  vine  planted  by  the  waters "  and  it 
may  well  be  that  Zafzafa  is  also  a  "  vine."  For 
why  should  the  King  of  Babylon  devote  such 
pains  to  the  cultivation  of  a  willow  and  how 
would  it  transform  itself  into  a  vine  ? 

The  willow  called  Zafzafa  differed  from  the 
Araba ;  the  former  was  not  lawful  for  use  on 
Tabernacles.  Its  leaf  was  round  and  the  edge 
serried,  while  the  Araba  had  an  elongated  leaf 
with  plain  edges.  The  Zafzafa  is  thus  rather  a 
poplar  than  a  willow  in  the  Talmudic  view,  and 
Rashi  (on  Ezekiel  xvii.  5)  translates  Zafzafa  by 
pewplier.  It  grew  in  the  valleys  between  the 
hills  rather  than  by  perennial  streams,  and  thus 
did  not  fall  within  the  category  of  "willows  of 
the  brook"  (Leviticus  xxxiii.  -10). 


122         WILLOWS  OF  THE  BROOK 

On  the  first  day  of  the  festival  a  jubilant 
procession  made  its  way  to  Mozah  (a  forty 
minutes'  walk  from  Jerusalem),  and  masses  of 
willows  were  gathered  for  the  decoration  of  the 
altar.  There  are  few  willows  now  in  Mozah,  but 
the  Arabs  bring  them  to  Jerusalem  from  Hebron 
and  the  South  in  baskets.  The  willows  were 
used  in  Temple  times  for  decorating  the  altar 
as  well  as  for  the  bundle  including  the  "  four 
kinds."  They  were  placed  round  the  altar,  piled 
so  that  the  tops  overhung  and  formed  a  kind  of 
canopy,  while  the  procession  passed  round.  We 
have  a  survival  of  this  custom  in  the  use  of  the 
willows  (hoshaana)  on  the  seventh  day  of  Succoth 
(hoshaana  rabbi).  That  the  beating  or  shaking 
of  the  leaves  had  a  symbolical  meaning  cannot 
be  doubted.  The  exact  significance  is,  however, 
doubtful.  It  is  usually  held  to  typify  the  end 
of  the  harvest,  the  fall  of  the  leaves  from  the 
trees  and  the  approaching  nakedness  of  winter. 
It  may  be  so,  but  one  might  prefer  to  detect  a 
more  joyous  implication,  the  willow  being  (as  in 
Isaiah)  an  emblem  of  resurrection  rather  than  of 
death  and  decay.  Mr.  Frazer  would  no  doubt 
suggest  a  very  different  explanation. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  willow  was  turned 
to  an  altogether  fascinating  use  either  by  the 
Midrash,  or  by  the  authors  of  the  Piyutim.  The 
latter,  indeed,  are  entirely  dependent  on  the 
former,  and  show  no  originality.  The  "  four 
species "  typified  man :  the  palm  is  the  spine, 
the  myrtle   the  eye,  the  willow  the  mouth,  the 


WILLOWS  OF  THE  BROOK         123 

citron  the  heart.  Again  the  willow  typifies 
Rachel.  Just  as  the  willow  withers  before  the 
three  other  kinds,  so  Rachel  died  before  her 
sister.  This  is  sufficiently  melancholy.  More 
neutral  is  the  use  of  the  two  sprigs  of  willow  as 
an  emblem  of  the  two  scribes  of  the  Sanhedrin. 
The  willow,  again,  often  typifies  God,  the  rider  on 
the  araboth,  in  the  heavens  (Psalm  lxviii.).  The 
more  hopeful  note  is  also  struck  in  comparing 
the  willow  to  Joseph,  "  the  brother  bought  as  a 
slave,"  with  a  play  perhaps  on  the  word  meaning 
"  pledge."    Joseph  eventually  saw  the  light. 

The  bearing  of  the  willows  is,  according  to 
another  Piyut,  to  save  Israel  "  from  the  flame  of 
glowing  coal."  The  allusion  is  to  the  saving 
efficacy  of  prayer.  Best  of  all  is  the  Midrasliic 
idea  that  the  four  kinds  exemplify  God's  use  for 
all  his  creatures.  The  citron  has  odour  (  =  good 
deeds)  and  taste  (  =  Law) ;  the  palm  (date)  has  no 
odour  but  has  taste  ;  the  myrtle  has  odour  but 
no  taste,  the  willow  has  neither  taste  nor  odour. 
God  bids  Israel  bind  them  together,  they  help 
out  the  deficiencies  of  one  another.  So  if  Israel 
be  but  bound  firmly  in  a  fraternal  whole,  each 
individual  has  his  place.  The  willow,  poor 
destitute,  shares,  at  all  events,  in  the  general 
good,  even  if  it  contribute  nothing  but  its  pre 
sence.  '  They  also  serve  who  only  stand  and 
wait." 


XVIII 

QUEEN  ESTHER  ON  THE  ENGLISH 
STAGE 

No  English  play  on  the  subject  of  Esther 
matches  the  romantic  beauty  of  the  drama 
which  Racine  wrote  in  1689  for  the  nuns  of 
St.  Cyr.  Nor  is  there  an  English  Esther  as 
genially  artistic  as  the  heroine  of  the  nineteenth 
century  tragedy  which  delighted  the  audiences 
of  Grillparzer  in  Vienna.  For  all  that,  the 
English  dramas  recording  the  story  of  Ahasuerus 
and  his  Queen  possess  many  features  of  unusual 
interest.  Some  of  these  plays  may  be  dismissed 
with  a  bare  mention.  In  Francis  Kirkman's 
compilation,  "  The  Wits,  or  Sport  upon  Sport," 
published  in  1673,  there  is  a  feeble  scene,  con- 
sisting of  forty-six  lines  in  all,  in  which  the 
fate  of  Haman  is  enacted,  The  author  was 
probably  Robert  Cox,  a  prolific  writer  of  drolls, 
but  his  "  Ahasuerus  and  Esther "  contains  no 
wit  whatever.  Another  very  poor  effort  was 
Thomas  Brereton's  "  Esther,  or  Faith  Triumphant" 
(1715).  This  was  an  adaptation  of  Racine's 
play,  but  it  was  never  performed  on  any  stage. 
A    like    fate    befell    John    Collett's    "Esther,    a 


ESTHER  ON  THE  ENGLISH  STAGE     125 

Sacred  Drama"  (1806),  for  Baker  informs  us 
that  this  play  was  also  denied  a  public  hearing. 
Cox's  little  interlude  was  no  doubt  meant  to 
be  introduced  between  the  items  of  a  longer 
programme;  and  it  probably  was  often  used  on 
the  stage. 

For  a  really  interesting  English  Esther  we 
must  go  back  to  an  earlier  period.  From  an 
entry  of  Henslowe  we  learn  that  on  June  3, 
1594,  a  scriptural  drama  called  "Hester  and 
Ahasuerus"  was  performed  in  London  by  the 
Lord  Chamberlain's  players,  a  company  which 
then  included  Shakespeare  himself.  It  is  not 
clear  which  play  is  alluded  to  by  Henslowe, 
for  there  were  more  than  one  in  vogue  at  the 
time  of  which  he  speaks.  There  is  first  the 
curious  play  printed  in  German  in  1G20,  but 
obviously  older,  and  certainly  English  in  origin. 
This  "Comedy  of  the  Queen  Esther  and  the 
Haughty  Hainan"  was  one  of  the  plays  which 
were  produced  in  various  parts  of  the  Continent 
by  a  troupe  of  strolling  actors  who  hailed  from 
Endand  and  did  so  much  to  foster  dramatic 
art  abroad.  If  England  now  borrows  so  many 
of  her  plays  from  the  foreigner,  the  debt  was 
paid  in  advance  in  the  fifteenth,  sixteenth,  ami 
seventeenth  ceuturies.  This  particular  Esther 
was  performed  in  many  Continental  towns  and 
before  sundry  German  princes.  It  is  an  in- 
teresting literary  phenomenon,  for  it  belongs  to 
a  type  representative  of  the  great  struggle  made 
by  the    Morality  play  to    resist    the    supremacy 


126     ESTHER   ON   THE   ENGLISH   STAGE 

of  the  newer  form  of  drama,  such  as  became 
dominant  at  the  close  of  the  Elizabethan  period. 
Like  another  drama  to  be  mentioned  later  on, 
this  plays  marks  the  transition  from  the  ecclesi- 
astical to  the  secular  drama. 

But  its  interest  for  Jews  is  even  stronger 
than  this.  A  notable  character  in  the  play  is 
the  Clown,  called  in  this  instance  "  Hans  Knap- 
kase."  This  name  establishes  a  link  on  the 
one  hand  with  the  Shakesperian  fools,  and  on 
the  other  hand  with  the  burlier  buffoons  be- 
loved of  Continental  audiences  and  of  Jews. 
The  funny  man  of  the  Jewish  jargon  plays  is 
simply  lifted  from  such  characters  as  Hans 
Cheeseboy.  The  clowns  of  many  such  plays 
were  named  from  articles  of  food.  Thus  in 
Holland  the  clown  was  named  Pickelherring  (a 
familiar  figure  also  in  Jewish  jargon  plays),  in 
France  Jean  Potage,  in  Italy  Signor  Maccaroni, 
in  England  Jack  Pudding,  and  in  Germany 
Hans  Wurst.  In  this  play  performed  by  English 
actors  the  clown,  Hans  Knapkase,  has  a  "  fat " 
part.  No  doubt  the  nature  of  the  fun  was 
suggested  by  the  subject,  for  it  will  be  re- 
membered that  Ahasuerus  and  Vashti  could  not 
agree  as  to  the  mutual  relations  (so  far  as 
obedience  is  concerned)  between  husband  and 
wife.  There  is  a  really  humorous  scene  between 
Hans  and  his  good  lady,  in  which  blows  are 
freely  exchanged.  Mrs.  Hans  comes  off  com- 
pletely victorious,  and  Hans  makes  his  exit, 
walking  meekly  behind  her  carrying  her  basket. 


ESTHER  ON  THE  ENGLISH  STAGE     127 

Hans,  outside  the  domestic  circlo,  is  a  truculent 
personage ;  he  is  the  carpenter-hangman.  He 
builds  tho  gallows  for  Haman,  and  also  acts  as 
executioner.  The  play  has  no  literary  merit, 
but  of  course  it  does  not  fairly  represent  the 
English  original ;  it  rather  looks  like  the  mere 
skeleton  of  the  play,  jotted  down,  and  rilled 
in  by  the  editor  for  German  readers.  But  the 
play  is  amusing,  and  certainly  is  better  than 
the  one  seen  by  the  Abbe  Coyer  during  a  visit 
which  he  paid  to  Amsterdam  in  1759.  The 
Abbe  reports  that  Ahasuerus  did  nothing  in 
this  play  but  eat  and  sleep.  In  each  of  the 
three  acts  he  had  a  banquet,  and  as  the  curtain 
rose  he  was  invariably  asleep  on  his  throne. 
Haman  was  a  fearsome  criminal,  who  expired 
on  the  gallows  in  melodramatic  agony.  We  felt 
very  sad,  says  the  Abbe,  but  suddenly  Mordecai 
brought  our  souls  back  to  gaiety  by  dancing 
a  merry  Saraband e  with  two  Rabbis  in  front 
of  the  gallows.  The  three  dancers  were  muffled 
up  in  black  tunics,  and  the  performers  resembled 
three  coal-sacks  moving  in  heavy  cadence. 

The  comedy  described  above  was  performed 
by  English  actors  in  Germany  certainly  as  late 
as  162G,  for  on  July  3rd  of  that  year  it  was 
given  in  Dresden.  The  Englishmen's  Esther 
must  have  been  very  popular,  for  Hans  Sachs' 
earlier  play  on  the  same  subject  could  not  hold 
out  against  it.  But  we  have  direct  information 
that  Valentin  Andreae  composed  an  Esther  to 
rival     the     foreign    importation.       Our    present 


128    ESTHER  ON  THE  ENGLISH  STAGE 

purpose  must,  however,  carry  us  back  to  England 
itself,  where  we  know  of  a  very  fine  "  Interlude  " 
on  the  subject  of  Esther  first  published  by 
William  Pickering  and  Thomas  Hacket,  book- 
sellers, in  1561. 

The  author  of  this  beautiful  work  cannot  be 
identified,  but  the  "  Godly  Queene  Hester "  re- 
mains to  sing  his  anonymous  praises.  Mr.  Israel 
Gollancz  kindly  drew  my  attention  to  Grosart's 
reprint  of  this  semi-Morality  play ;  it  has  recently 
(1904)  been  again  reprinted  by  W.  W.  Greg.  In 
the  German  plays  of  the  Reformation  period, 
Esther  was  a  favourite  medium  for  hurling  satire 
at  the  Pope  and  all  his  works,  Hainan's  fall 
having  clear  attractions  for  those  who  wished 
no  good  to  the  Vatican.  In  the  "  Godly 
Queene  Hester "  a  similar  phenomenon  presents 
itself,  but  the  satire  is  social,  not  theological. 
First,  here  is  an  extract  from  the  title-page 
(with  modernised  spelling) : — 

"Come  near  virtuous  matrons  and  women  kind, 
Here  may  ye  learn  of  Hester's  duty, 
In  all  comeliness  of  virtue  ye  shall  find 
How  to  behave  yourselves  in  humility." 

The  names  of  the  players : — 


Assewerua 

.     Adulation. 

Three  Gentlemen 

.     Ambition. 

Aman  (=  Hainan)    . 

.    Hardy  dardy 

Mardocheus 

.     A  Jew. 

Pursuivant 

.     Scribe.- 

ESTHER  ON   THE   ENGLISH  STAGE     120 

This  list  of  characters  consists  partly  of  real 
persons,  partly  of  personifications — thus  the  play 
is  an  intermediate  stage  between  the  Morality 
and  the  drama  proper.  The  satiric  touches 
to  which  I  have  already  referred  are  hurled  at 
Haman,  but  they  aro  directed  in  truth  against 
the  Ministers  of  Henry  VIII.  Once,  as  Grosart 
points  out,  the  author  forgets  himself,  and  allows 
Ambition  angrily  to  lament  that  the  country, 
despite  excessive  taxation,  is  not  prepared  for 
Avar  with  France  or  Scotland !  There  is  good 
reason  for  holding  that  the  dramatist  wrote 
between  1525-29,  and  designed  his  play  as 
a  somewhat  fierce  attack  on  Cardinal  Wolsey. 
The  audience  must  have  seen  that  the  gibes 
at  Haman  (Aman)  were  meant  for  the  great 
Court  circles  of  their  own  day.  There  is  one 
curiosity  to  which  I  must  draw  special  attention. 
Pride  and  Adulation  both  make  their  wills,  and 
leave  all  their  evil  qualities  as  a  bequest  to 
Haman.  Now,  in  1703,  there  was  printed  in 
Hebrew  a  burlesque  Will  of  Haman,  in  which 
he  bade  his  children  to  abstain  from  giving 
charity,  because  it  is  not  profitable,  and  to 
avoid  robbing  the  poor  because  they  possess 
nothing  worth  stealing.  May  we  find  the  origin 
of  this  Hebrew  fancy  in  the  play  now  before 
us  ?  Space  prevents  me  from  lingering  over  the 
many  beauties  of  this  "  Godly  Queene  Hester," 
But  there  are  three  things  that  must  be  said. 
Mr.  Grosart  holds  that  though  Hester  fills  the 
title    role,  she    sinks    into   insignificance    in  the 

I 


130  ESTHER   ON   THE   ENGLISH   STAGE 

play  itself.  This  is  hardly  the  case.  The 
dramatist  gives  a  spirited  picture  of  womanhood 
in  his  Hester.  As  Grosart  himself  points  out 
Hester  reminds  one  of  Lady  Jane  Grey.  This 
is  Mordecai's  description  of  her  : — 

"  A  pearl  undefiled,  and  of  conscience  clear, 
Sober,  sad,  gentle,  meek  and  demure, 
In  learning  and  literature  profoundly  seen 
In  wisdom,  eke  semblant  to  Saba  the  Queen." 

And  in  several  passages  Hester  is  the  type  of 
a  noble  ideal.  My  second  point  relates  to 
Hardy-dardy,  the  fool  of  the  play.  The  words 
"  Hardy-dardy "  are  simply  a  reduplication  of 
"  hardy,"  meaning  a  rash  fellow,  a  dare-devil. 
In  his  "wise  unwisdom  and  uncanny  rashness 
of  speech"  Hardy-dardy  recalls  the  fools  of 
Shakespeare.  His  smart  tongue  and  ready 
phrase  are  quite  Shakesperian.  It  would  be 
strange  did  it  prove,  as  Mr.  Grosart  hints,  that 
Shakespeare  derived  some  of  his  inspiration  from 
this  delightful  interlude.  My  third  point  is  this. 
In  the  Jewish  Puriin  plays,  Haman,  while  he 
is  not  by  any  means  whitewashed,  is  never- 
theless rather  the  object  of  ridicule  than  of 
vindictiveness.  But  in  the  English  "  Interlude  " 
Haman  is  an  unmitigated  villain.  As  Mr.  Greg 
well  says,  it  is  he  who  is  the  incarnation  of  all 
the  vices,  for  though  Pride,  Adulation,  and  Am- 
bition appear  in  person  on  the  scene,  it  is  to 
Haman  and  not  to  them  that  these  vices  belong. 
They  are  milk-and-water  rogues  compared  to  him. 
There   is    one    other    English    presentation  of 


ESTHER  ON  THE  ENGLISH  STAGE    131 

Esther  to  which  a  few  lines  must  be  devoted. 
On  Handel's  birthday  (February  23rd)  in  1732, 
the  Esther  Oratorio  was  performed  for  the  first 
time  by  the  children  of  the  Chapel  Royal,  at 
the  house  of  their  leader,  Bernard  Gates,  in 
Westminster.  The  libretto  owed  something  to 
Alexander  Pope  and  to  Arbuthnot,  but  their 
handiwork  is  disfigured  by  the  alterations  and 
additions  made  by  Humphreys.  The  words  are 
not,  of  course,  wanting  in  charm,  but  there  is 
little  of  Pope's  grace  or  of  Arbuthnot's  wit  to 
be  detected.  The  lyrics  are  more  or  less  de- 
rived from  Racine.  The  Oratorio  seems  to  have 
been  at  once  successful,  for  in  the  same  year 
it  was  performed  at  a  subscription  concert  at 
the  "  Crown  and  Anchor "  Tavern  and  again  at 
the  room  in  Villiers  Street.  The  performers 
were  very  notable  people.  Gates  himself  was 
eccentric  enough,  but  the  people  of  most  interest 
to  us  are  the  boys  who  sang  the  chief  parts. 
First  there  was  Beard,  famous  afterwards  as  a 
vocalist  and  actor,  and  as  the  manager  of  the 
Covent  Garden  Theatre.  Charles  Dibdin  Avrote 
that  "  taken  altogether,  Beard  is  the  best  English 
singer  .  .  .  his  voice  is  sound  and  male,  power- 
ful, flexible,  and  extensive."  Handel  especially 
composed  for  Beard  some  of  his  finest  tenor 
parts,  among  others  those  in  "  Israel  in  Egypt," 
the  "  Messiah,"  and  "  Judas  Maccabasus."  The 
part  of  Esther  was  sung  in  1732  by  the  boy 
John  Randall,  who  subsequently  became  Professor 
of  Music  at  Cambridge  University. 


XIX 

HANS   SACHS'    "ESTHER." 

Nuremberg  was  aglow  with  enthusiasm  in  1894 
in  celebration  of  the  400th  anniversary  of  Hans 
Sachs'  birth.  In  his  native  city  some  of  his 
homely  dramas  were  enacted,  and  the  spectators, 
among  whom  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  find 
myself,  could  readily  understand  the  hold  which 
the  shoemaker  and  poet  had  won  on  the  hearts 
of  his  contemporaries.  There  is  no  character- 
drawing,  no  analysis  of  motives  in  Hans  Sachs' 
plays.  But  there  is  humour  and  movement, 
and,  above  all,  good  morals.  In  his  secular 
dialogues  he  delineates  the  common  life  of  his 
day,  and  though  the  humour  is  rough  it  is 
hearty,  and  the  satire  if  simple  is  sincere.  He 
allowed  less  scope  to  his  fancy  in  his  Shrove 
Tuesday  dramas,  but  his  vividness,  his  medieval 
combination  of  buffoonery  with  reverence,  im- 
parted to  the  sacred  or  mystery  plays  a  new 
lease  of  life  towards  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  not  only  in  Germany,  but  all  over 
Europe. 

Hans  Sachs  wrote  two  dramas  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Esther.  Of  the  version  which  appeared 
in    1559,   nothing    will  be  said   on  the   present 

132 


HANS  SACHS'  "ESTHER"  133 

occasion.  But  his  earlier  "  Esther,"  written  in 
153G,  is,  as  far  as  I  know,  the  oldest  complete 
dramatisation  of  the  biblical  story,  for  the  Eng- 
lish "Interlude,"  though  perhaps  a  few  years 
earlier,  is  not  a  complete  play.  I  cannot  quite 
agree  with  Schwarz  that  the  play  shows  poor 
dramatic  technique.  Sachs  throughout  fits  his 
material  to  the  resources  of  his  stage.  Thus, 
he  skilfully  omits  the  second  banquet  given  by 
Queen  Esther,  he  makes  no  attempt  to  represent 
Mordecai's  triumph,  and  the  negotiations  between 
Esther  and  Mordecai  on  the  action  to  be  pursued 
by  the  former,  at  the  critical  moment  of  Hainan's 
plot,  are  cleverly  contrived  as  occurring  behind 
the  scenes.  But  it  must  be  confessed  that  the 
material  is  clumsily  divided.  There  are  three 
Acts  to  the  play,  with  about  160,  220,  and  390 
lines  respectively.  Schwarz,  again,  overstates  the 
slavish  fidelity  of  Sachs  to  his  scriptural  original. 
Certainly  the  biblical  narrative  is  closely  fol- 
lowed, but  several  of  the  dramatis  personcc 
have  no  counterpart  in  the  Bible.  Here  it  is 
interesting  to  note  that  Sachs'  list  of  the  char- 
acters appended  to  the  play  does  not  quite 
correspond  with  the  characters  as  they  appear 
in  the  body  of  the  drama.  The  point,  how- 
ever, is  that  of  his  thirteen  characters  some 
have  an  unauthorised  prominence,  while  two 
are  altogether  without  biblical  warrant.  These 
are  the  Herald  and  the  Fool.  Sachs  always 
begins  and  ends  his  sacred  plays  with  a  Herald 
or    some   such    character.     In    his    "  Adam   and 


134  HANS   SACHS'   "ESTHER" 

Eve,"  a  Cherub  appears  in  the  Herald's  place. 
In  his  "  Esther,"  the  Herald  enters  and  bows, 
welcomes  Ahasuerus'  guests,  then  exits  to  in- 
troduce the  King  himself.  At  the  close,  the 
same  Herald  delivers  a  long  summary  of  the 
incidents  which  have  been  portrayed,  and  passes 
a  moral  judgment  on  them  all.  Wives  must 
learn  from  Vashti's  fate  that  it  is  dangerous  to 
defy  their  husbands;  Esther  is  a  model  of 
modesty  and  sweetness ;  Haman,  a  fearful  warn- 
ing against  deceit  and  cunning;  Mordecai,  a 
type  of  the  faithful  God-fearer;  the  King,  of 
the  virtue  of  justice. 

"  Als  denn  wirt  uns  Got  audi  gross  machen. 
Das  unser  ehr  gran,  blu  und  wachs, 
Das  wunschet  zu  Nuruberg  Hans  Sachs." 

The  play  is  written  throughout  in  rhymed 
couplets. 

More  interesting  still  is  the  Fool.  He  has 
some  of  the  usual  qualities  of  the  buffoons  of 
the  "  Fastnacht,"  or  Carnival  plays  (by  the  way 
Hans  Sachs  describes  Purim  as  a  Jewish  "  Fast- 
nacht ").  The  Fool  has  a  great  love  for  eating 
and  drinking,  just  as  his  prototypes  in  the 
Shrove  Tuesday  mysteries.  In  Sachs'  "  Esther  " 
the  Fool  is  always  hovering  round  the  royal 
table,  and  when  Esther  invites  the  King  and 
Haman  to  a  feast  the  Fool  audibly  smacks 
his  lips  in  anticipation  of  the  good  things 
coming,  which  Esther  prepares  with  her  own 
hands.     Again  Sachs'  Fool  is  greedy  and  grasp- 


HANS  SACHS'   "ESTHER"  135 

ing,  after  the  wont  of  his  class.  When  the 
King  bestows  on  Esther  the  property  of  Haman, 
the  Fool  interposes  with  a  claim  for  a  share 
in  the  spoil.  Give  me,  he  cries,  Haman's  red 
riding  boots,  that  I  may  strut  in  them  on  feast 
days,  and  rouse  the  envy  of  the  poor  fellows 
who  have  no  such  leggings.  The  Fool,  again, 
shows  very  little  generosity  of  feeling.  When 
Haman  is  down  and  has  to  conduct  Mordecai's 
triumph  the  Fool  taunts  him  unmercifully; 
when  finally  the  fallen  favourite  is  led  off  to 
the  gallows,  the  Fool  heads  the  procession  with 
unmannerly  jeers.  This  is  a  blot  not  only  on 
the  play  but  on  the  poet.  But,  for  all  this, 
the  Fool  of  Hans  Sachs  is  unlike  those  of  the 
common  "  Fastnacht "  plays.  Like  Shakespeare's 
Clowns,  under  a  mask  of  folly  he  wears  a  heart 
of  wisdom.  He  warns  the  King  solemnly  of 
the  futility  of  yielding  to  Hainan's  cruel  pro- 
posals, he  protests  wisely  and  well.  His  wit 
has  a  very  biting  effectiveness,  and  he  never 
spares  his  royal  master. 

"  Weisst  nit  ?  man  jach  vor  alten  zeitten, 
Ein  geher  man  solt  esel  reyten." 

Thus,  in  many  important  points,  Hans  Sachs' 
"  Esther "  departs  from  the  biblical  original. 
The  same  is  the  case  in  details,  some  of  which 
have  been  already  indicated.  At  Ahasuerus' 
feast  there  are  knightly  sports.  At  table,  tlio 
King  boasts  of  his  wealth  and  the  beauty  of 
Vashti,   and    the    Major-domo,    who    is    named 


136  HANS  SACHS'   "ESTHER" 

Ainnon,  assents  with  a  flattering  smile — an 
original  touch  of  the  dramatist's.  The  Fool 
tells  the  King  that  Vashti  will  not  come,  for, 
says  he,  when  women  get  together  at  table  they 
become  so  refractory  that  not  even  a  pear-stalk 
will  they  spare  for  their  husbands.  The  King 
consults  two  instead  of  seven  councillors.  A 
display  of  brides  is  made  throughout  the  king- 
dom, and  Mordecai  introduces  Esther  to  the 
Chamberlain.  He  bids  her,  in  prophetic  terms, 
unknown  to  Scripture  at  this  point,  to  conceal 
her  Jewish  origin,  for  who  knows  what  God 
may  intend  from  her  exaltation  ?  When  the 
King  falls  in  love  with  her,  Esther  at  first 
modestly  declines  the  crown  as  too  honourable 
a  distinction.  She  soon  renders  her  husband 
signal  service,  by  reporting  the  plot  of  Theresh 
and  Bigthan.  In  her  report  she  describes 
Mordecai  as  her  relative,  an  un-biblical  feature. 
Hans  Sachs,  strangely  oblivious  of  this  inter- 
polation, subsequently  follows  the  Bible  in 
making  the  revelation  of  the  relationship  at 
the  Queen's  banquet.  Haman's  plot  against 
the  whole  Jewish  people  is  based  by  Sachs  not 
merely  on  the  biblical  motive  of  personal  re- 
venge, but  also  on  Haman's  national  rancour 
against  the  descendants  of  the  enemies  of  his 
race — the  Amalekites.  Instead  of  ten  thousand 
talents,  Haman  offers  the  King  ten  hundred- 
weights of  silver  as  a  bribe.  When  Esther 
presents  herself  before  the  King,  who  is  sur- 
rounded  by  his    court,    she    excuses  her    delay 


HANS   SACHS'   "ESTHER'  137 

in  stating  her  petition  till  the  banquet  on  the 
plea  that  the  King's  gracious  reception  of  her 
had  overcome  her  too  much  to  permit  of  further 
speech.  Haman  resolves  to  build  the  gallows 
on  his  own  initiative ;  he  is  not  prompted  by 
his  wife  as  in  the  Scripture.  The  play  ends 
(except  for  the  Herald's  speech),  with  a  sum- 
mons to  a  dance. 

"  Mach  auff,  spielman,  ein  zuchting  reyen, 
Auff  (lass  wir  uns  alle  erfrewen." 

Despite  these  many  deviations,  Schwarz  is 
so  far  right  that  Hans  Sachs'  "  Esther "  is,  on 
the  whole,  nothing  but  a  dramatisation  of  the 
Bible  story.  The  discrepancies  are  indeed  set 
out  by  Schwarz  himself,  in  his  able  essay  on 
"  The  Esther  Dramas  of  the  Reformation  Era," 
an  essay  to  which  I  am  much  indebted.  Hans 
Sachs'  work,  taken  altogether,  produces  a  very 
pleasing  effect  on  the  reader.  It  is  destitute 
of  the  lyric  beauty  of  Racine,  but  it  is  truer 
to  human  nature.  There  is  no  hidden  motive 
in  it.  It  is  an  attack  neither  on  the  Jews  nor 
on  the  Pope.  Several  Esther  dramas,  in  Latin 
and  German,  were  satires  on  Roman  Catholicism. 
But  Hans  Sachs,  though  an  ardent  admirer 
of  Luther,  does  not  here  use  Esther  as  a  con- 
troversial weapon  in  aid  of  "  the  Wittenberg 
Nightingale."  The  simplicity  and  homeliness 
of  the  Nuremberg  shoemaker  long  made  Hans 
Sachs  unpalatable  to  the  German  lovers  of 
"  learned  "    puetry.       But    since    Goethe    re-dis- 


138  HANS   SACHS'   "ESTHER' 

covered  him,  his  repute  has  gone  on  growing, 
until  it  is  now  perhaps  higher  than  is  just. 
But  his  plays,  of  one  class  of  which  "  Esther " 
may  be  taken  as  a  type,  are  pure  and  vivid, 
full  of  a  charm  imparted  by  the  most  honest 
and  direct  means. 


XX 

THE    SHOFAR 

"  Shall  the  trumpet  (Shofar)  be  blown  in  a  city 
and  the  people  not  be  afraid  ?  "  (Amos  iii.  6). 

The  Shofar,  or  Ram's-horn,  is  one  of  the 
most  primitive  of  musical  instruments.  Ancient 
Israel  may  have  adopted  the  lyre  and  cittern 
from  Greece,  though  there  is  good  reason  to 
think  that  the  Jews  were  under  no  such  obli- 
gations to  foreign  influences  in  music  as  they 
were  in  some  other  branches  of  art,  such  as 
architecture.  At  all  events  the  Shofar  was  a 
native  instrument.  At  first  it  had  no  exclu- 
sively religious  associations,  such  as  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  Jubilee  and  the  approach 
of  the  Ark,  but  was  blown  on  secular  occasions 
as  well  on  royal  accessions,  in  assemblies,  for 
signals  in  battle,  by  watchmen  on  the  towers. 
The  Shofar,  however,  has  been  appropriated  by 
the  Synagogue  for  solemn  uses  on  the  New 
Year  and  on  some  other  days  associated  with 
the  penitential  season.  It  is  still  the  only 
musical  instrument  heard  within  the  walls  of 
a  large  majority  of  Jewish  places  of  worship. 

Such  appropriation  is  a  natural  evolution. 
We  see  a  somewhat  similar  process  in  the  case 

139 


140  THE  SHOFAR 

of  the  "  fringes  "  on  the  tallith.  The  tallith  was 
originally  a  four-cornered,  toga-like  outer  gar- 
ment ordinarily  worn  in  the  East.  Being  no 
longer  used  as  part  of  the  daily  costume,  the 
tallith  was  retained  as  a  vestment  during  prayer. 
Ecclesiastical  vestments  are  often  mere  survivals 
of  ancient  fashions.  The  case  of  the  Shofar 
is  not  quite  parallel,  for  the  Bible  specifically 
ordains  the  blowing  of  the  Shofar  on  the  festi- 
val now  more  commonly  known  as  the  autumnal 
New  Year. 

We  no  longer  retain  in  England  one  of  the 
most  effective  of  Synagogue  rites,  though  in 
some  parts  of  the  Continent  the  rite  still  holds. 
The  congregation  stands  at  silent  worship  dur- 
ing the  long  Mussaf  prayer  on  the  New  Year. 
Thrice  the  stillness  is  broken  by  the  piercing 
blasts  of  the  Shofar.  The  effect  is  indescribably 
weird. 

But  even  without  this  aid  to  the  solemnity, 
the  Shofar,  as  we  are  accustomed  to  it  in  this 
country,  is  arrestive  enough.  Its  shrill,  unme- 
lodious  notes  resemble  nothing  of  our  common 
music.  It  is  a  harsh  intruder  on  the  light 
melodies  which  most  of  us  love.  Just  such  an 
impression  must  Amos  have  made  on  the  soft 
livers  of  Samaria  and  Jerusalem.  His  wild  looks 
and  uncouth  bearing  must  have  been  as  repul- 
sive to  them  as  their  unrighteous  ease  in  Zion 
was  odious  to  him.  As  Amaziah,  the  court 
priest,  complained  of  Amos,  "  the  land  cannot 
bear  all   his   words,"  and    the  shepherd  prophet 


THE   SHOFAR  141 

was  thrust  back  to  his  sycomores.  But  Israel 
was  not  all  court  priest,  and  though  Amos  may 
have  failed  to  make  an  immediate  impression, 
he  began  the  process  of  creating  that  serious 
element  in  the  people  which  realised  in  its 
life  the  prophetic  ideals.  The  prophet  never 
wins  many  hearers  at  once.  As  rare  as  the 
prophetic  gift  itself  is  the  gift  of  understanding 
a  prophet's  message.  But  from  Amos  until 
the  destruction  of  the  first  Temple,  there  was  no 
break  in  the  line  of  prophets  to  lift  up  their  voice 
like  the  Shofar  and  tell  their  people  their  sin. 
And  a  remnant  of  Israel  was  always  ready  to 
listen.  It  was  no  vain  boast  that  a  Psalmist 
uttered  some  five  centuries  later : — 

"  All  this  is  come  upon  us  : 
Yet  have  we  not  forgotten  Thee, 
Neither  have  we  dealt  falsely  in  Thy  covenant." 

Israel's  long-drawn  out  loyalty,  Israel's  devotion 
to  God,  persistent  despite  temporary  lapses,  is  the 
truest  comment  on  this  text. 

Reverting  to  the  metaphor  used  by  Amos,  the 
trumpet-call  to  a  threatened  city,  we  find  in  it 
the  idea  which  the  Synagogue  now  most  closely 
connects  with  the  Shofar  on  the  New  Year.  There 
are — as  the  meditation  ascribed  to  Saadiah  shows 
— other  ideas  in  plenty :  the  Creation,  the  Bind- 
ing of  Isaac,  the  Revelation  on  Sinai,  the  Pro- 
clamation  of  God's  Kingship,  the  final  Day  of 
Judgment,  the  Resurrection,  and  the  Messianic 
Redemption.    All  these  sublime  thoughts  are  asso- 


142  THE   SHOFAR 

ciated  in  Scripture  with  the  Shofar,  and  find  their 
due  place  in  the  liturgy  of  the  New  Year.  But 
Maiinonides  rightly  throws  chief  stress  on  the  idea, 
"  Ye  sleepers,  awake ! "  In  his  ear  the  Shofar 
sounds  the  call  to  seriousness.  "  Leave  vanities, 
turn  to  realities."  You  cannot  trip  through  life 
to  dance  music.  Amid  the  dainty  trills  of  the 
flutes,  the  Shofar  sounds  harsh  alarm  for  war.  It 
is  a  moment  for  heroism.  Many  a  man  shows 
himself  possessed  of  unsuspected  courage  when  a 
sudden  danger  summons  him  to  defend  hearth 
and  home.  The  same  courage  is  needed  for 
defending  the  citadel  of  God,  which  enshrines  the 
earnest  purposes  of  life,  for  confronting  the  stern 
realities  which  the  prophets  of  Israel  confronted, 
and  which  made  them  sometimes  look  sourly  on 
life's  gaieties  and  lightheartedness. 

"  He  heard  the  sound  of  the  Shofar  and  took 
not  warning ;  his  blood  shall  be  upon  him ; 
whereas  if  he  had  taken  warning  he  should  have 
delivered  his  soul "  (Ezekiel  xxxiii.  5).  Woe  to 
the  city  that  hears  the  signal  and  remains  un- 
moved, lulled  to  that  security  which  is  mortals' 
chiefest  enemy  by  the  comfortable  cry,  "  Peace, 
peace,  when  there  is  no  peace." 

"  I  am  pained  at  my  heart ; 
My  heart  is  disquieted  within  me ; 
I  cannot  hold  my  peace. 
For  thou  hast  heard,  0  my  soul,  the  Shofar, 
The  alarm  of  war." 

When  Jeremiah  thus  exclaimed,  it  was  not  so 
much  because  he  was  himself  afraid.      He  was 


THE   SHOFAR  143 

restive  because  he  could  not  communicate  the 
contagion  of  his  fear.  "  I  set  watchmen  over 
you,  saying,  Hearken  to  the  sound  of  the 
Shofar;  but  they  said,  We  will  not  hearken." 
Jeremiah's  contemporaries  thought  his  politics 
unpatriotic  because  ho  prophesied  disaster.  They 
would  not  respond  to  his  alarms.  And  so 
Jerusalem  had  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  Nebu- 
chadnezzar. So,  too,  must  the  Zion  of  our 
modern  hope  fall  if  Ave  be  deaf  when  the  Shofar 
summons  us  to  repair  the  breaches  in  our  wall, 
to  set  right  the  wrongs  which  our  policy  of 
drift  has  connived  at  if  not  created.  "  Ye 
sleepers,  awake  ! " 

"  Bring  me  back  in  penitence  to  Thee,  but  not, 
0  Lord,  by  means  of  chastisement."  Thus  prayed 
a  Rabbi  of  old.  Happy  the  man  who  can  find 
his  way  back  to  God  by  a  less  painful  path  than 
the  road  of  chastisement.  But  happy  he,  too, 
whom  the  Lord  chastiseth  into  penitence.  Un- 
happy he  who  is  chastised  in  vain,  who  learns 
nothing  from  his  trials,  who  hears  the  danger 
signal  but  is  not  afraid,  or  fears  for  an  instant 
and  then  forgets,  who 

"  Being  thus  frighted,  swears  a  prayer  or  two 
And  sleeps  again." 

The  Shofar  must  make  us  afraid,  it  must  im- 
pose on  us  the  lacking  emotions  of  awe  before 
the  mystery  of  life,  of  reverence  before  the 
majesty  of  God.  "  I  will  give  them  one  heart 
and  one  way,  that  they  may  fear   Mo   for  ever; 


144  THE  SHOFAR 

for  the  good  of  them  and  their  children  after 
them."  Not  a  fear  that  makes  us  shrink,  but  a 
fear  that  makes  us  serious ;  the  fear  of  the  Lord 
which  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom  for  us  and  for 
our  children  after  us. 


XXI 

HANUCAH    IN    OLDEN   TIMES 

Feasts  in  the  Middle  Ages  wore  a  strong  family 
likeness  to  one  another.  The  forms  of  enjoy- 
ment were  few,  and  taste  was  forced  into  a 
limited  number  of  channels.  But  there  was 
some  differentiation.  There  were  three  ele- 
ments in  joy,  each  of  which  had  a  local  habi- 
tation of  its  own :  in  the  synagogue,  in  the 
public  hall,  and  in  the  home.  The  three  were 
always  associated,  but  all  the  features  were  not 
equally  pronounced.  Each  of  the  minor  feasts 
chose  one  element  as  its  characteristic.  The 
Rejoicing  of  the  Law  was  a  synagogue  function, 
Purim  filled  the  streets  and  the  Communal  Hall, 
Hanucah  held  the  home  as  its  peculiar  scene. 

Women  made  holiday  on  the  Feast  of  Light, 
some  for  eight  days,  some  —  who  regarded  a 
week's  holiday  as  an  unpardonable  excess — only 
rested  on  the  first  and  the  last  days  of  the 
feast,  but  all  ceased  their  usual  occupations  at 
eventide,  while  the  lights  were  burning.  At 
an  earlier  period  the  illuminations  were  more 
public.  I  am  not  alluding  merely  to  the  illu- 
mination in  synagogue,  which  has  remained  a 
never    interrupted    rite.       But    in     the    Middle 

145  K 


146       HANUCAH   IN   OLDEN  TIMES 

Ages,  when  Jews  lived  in  special  quarters  of 
the  town,  the  lamps  were  often  set  outside  the 
doors  or  at  the  windows.  In  Venice  the  Jews 
would  embark  on  gondolas  and  row  through 
their  district,  greeting  each  illuminated  house 
with  a  benediction  and  a  merry  Hebrew  chorus. 
Venice  and  its  bridges  were  an  eternal  source 
both  of  fun  and  of  trial.  For  the  "  Cohanim " 
were  placed  in  a  sorry  plight  when  a  death 
occurred.  The  bridges  joined  the  whole  Jewish 
quarter,  and  it  was  held  by  many  that  the 
presence  of  a  corpse  in  any  one  house  "  defiled  " 
all  houses.  Hence  the  "  Priests "  were  forced 
to  pass  many  a  night  in  the  open  air,  in  snow 
or  rain,  spanning  Venice  with  a  dolorous  "  Bridge 
of  Sighs." 

But  it  early  became  the  rule  to  reserve  the 
Hanucah  lights  for  the  interior  of  the  house. 
We  can  easily  see  that  an  external  lamp  would 
invite  extinction.  The  Gaonim  already  felt  it 
necessary  to  permit  Jews  to  forego  the  duty  of 
"  publishing  the  miracle "  and  light  their  rooms 
rather  than  their  streets.  Nay,  the  practice 
may  be  traced  even  further  back,  to  early 
Roman  days.  It  is  obvious  that  this  trans- 
ference helped  to  make  Hanucah  a  domestic 
celebration.  But  it  led  to  a  further  develop- 
ment of  great  interest  in  the  history  of  Art. 
Illumination  was  common  to  many  medieval 
ceremonies.  By  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  Jews  had  acquired  the  habit  of  placing 
family  candles  in  the  synagogue,  in  memory  of 


HANUCAH   IN  OLDEN  TIMES       147 

the  dead,  on  the  Day  of  Atonement.  On  every 
festival  it  was  customary  in  some  parts  to  bear 
a  huge  torch  in  front  of  the  Scroll  of  the  Law. 
There  were,  further,  societies  of  young  men  who 
devoted  themselves  to  illuminating  the  syna- 
gogue on  all  appropriate  occasions.  Or,  again, 
in  Germany,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  at  a 
Bcrith  Milan,  candles  were  always  lit.  Maharil 
tells  us  of  a  case  of  the  initiation  of  twin  boys 
in  Mayence,  on  which  occasion  "  they  lit  twenty- 
four  small  candles  and  two  great  ones,"  which, 
he  adds,  "  were  double  the  usual  number." 

Naturally  the  feast  of  Hanucah  had  distinc- 
tive traits,  but  the  prevalence  of  illumination 
at  other  times  helped  to  spur  on  the  medieval 
Jews  to  give  the  Hanucah  lights  a  special  prestige. 
If  the  date  given  in  the  Strauss  Catalogue  be 
accurate,  then  as  early  as  the  twelfth  century 
goldsmiths  applied  their  nascent  feeling  for  art 
to  the  construction  of  ornate  Hanucah  lamps. 
One  of  that  date  seems  to  have  been  found  at 
Lyons  in  the  excavations  of  the  old  Jewish 
quarter.  The  metal  used  is  bronze,  and  the 
shape  of  the  lamp  is  triangular,  like  the  fronton 
of  the  Roman  Church.  On  this  the  lamps  lie 
flat,  but  it  was  more  usual,  until  the  eighteenth 
century,  to  construct  the  lamp  with  eight  up- 
right stems  or  branches,  with  another  extra 
stem  to  bear  the  "  Shamash  "  or  attendant  light. 
It  may  be  well  to  remind  readers  of  the  pur- 
pose served  by  this  extra  candle  or  oil-tlame. 
First,  it  was  there  to  serve  as  the  "  lighter,"  and 


148       HANUCAH  IN  OLDEN  TIMES 

thus  obviate  the  necessity  of  kindling  one  light 
from  another,  an  act  forbidden  by  some  ancient 
authorities.  But  its  chief  function  was  to  pro- 
vide a  light  that  might  be  "used."  If  the 
illumination  was  indoors,  it  would  scarcely  be 
possible  that  the  family  should  refrain  from 
seeing,  and  perchance  reading,  by  the  aid  of 
the  Hanucah  lamps.  Yet  this  was  opposed  to 
the  ritual  law.  Hence,  the  "Shamash"  was 
placed  higher  than  the  rest  of  the  lights,  or 
in  a  conspicuous  position  at  the  side,  certainly 
not  in  the  same  line.  This  gave  a  fresh  oppor- 
tunity to  the  artist.  In  another  of  the  Strauss 
specimens,  the  lamp,  standing  on  lions  and  bear- 
ing the  figures  of  heroes  and  many  symbolical 
devices,  is  surmounted  by  Judas  the  Maccabee; 
in  his  right  hand  he  holds  a  sword,  and  in  his 
left  he  bears  the  head  of  the  vanquished  Lysias. 
Copper,  gold,  silver,  bronze,  were  all  employed 
in  these  lamps.  The  Renaissance  clearly  had 
some  influence  on  Jewish  taste.  For,  besides 
the  usual  Hebraic  emblems,  such  as  the  two 
tables  of  stone,  cherubs,  several  architectural 
reminiscences  of  the  Temple,  vines  and  bells, 
flowers  and  pomegranates,  lions  and  eagles,  the 
widow's  cruse  of  oil,  the  seven-branched  cande- 
labrum, all  for  the  most  part  in  relief — besides 
these  and  the  favourite  grotesques  beloved  of 
Jewish  art,  there  is  an  occasional  specimen  of 
an  altogether  different  kind.  One  of  the  Strauss 
lamps  bears  classical  mythological  emblems,  the 
centre    being    adorned    with    a    Medusa    head ! 


HANUCAli   IN    OLDEN   TIMES       149 

Surely,  the  Renaissance  penetrated  fitfully  even 
into  the  Ghettos. 

Such  costly  works  of  art  were  not,  as  might 
he  thought,  the  rare  property  of  the  rich.  That 
they  were  common  is  clear  from  the  very  large 
number  of  extant  specimens  in  various  collec- 
tions. Moreover,  as  the  domesticity  of  Hanucah 
grew,  the  lamp  became  a  prized  ornament  of 
many  homes.  An  early  eighteenth  -  century 
authority,  who  is  the  spokesman  of  the  ordinary 
middle-class  Jew  of  his  day,  insists  that  every 
one  should  possess  a  silver  Hanucah  lamp,  or 
at  least  the  "  Shamash "  should  be  of  precious 
metal.  Of  course,  the  very  poor  must  have 
contented  themselves  with  less  expensive  ware. 
Some,  indeed,  used  egg-shells,  perhaps  because 
of  the  mention  of  egg-shells  in  the  Mishnah 
dealing  with  the  Sabbath  lamp,  or  in  memory 
of  the  eight  eggs  which  a  Rabbi  flung  into  the 
air  on  the  feast  of  the  "Water-drawing"  at 
Tabernacles.  Although  a  distinction  was  drawn 
between  the  biblical  and  the  post-biblical  feasts, 
still  Jews  transferred  the  customs  of  one  class 
to  the  other.  At  first,  indeed,  Hanucah  was 
observed  exactly  like  Tabernacles.  The  Second 
Book  of  the  Maccabees  tells  us  that,  on  Han- 
ucah, booths  were  built  and  palm-branches 
borne,  the  Hallel  was  sung,  and  in  other  respects, 
such  as  the  Reading  of  the  Law,  the  parallol 
was,  and  is  still,  maintained.  So,  too,  in  the 
choice  of  haftaras  for  the  feast,  the  idea  is 
uppermost  that   Hanucah,  like  Tabernacles,  was 


150       HANUCAH  IN  OLDEN  TIMES 

a  "  Period  of  Joy."  Some  modern  Jews  are 
indignant  that  in  the  formula  for  lighting  the 
Hanucah  lamps,  a  phrase  is  used  implying  that 
"God  commanded"  the  illumination  of  Jewish 
houses  at  the  Maccabean  festival.  A  medieval 
Italian  Rabbi  was  once  asked  the  same  question. 
His  answer  shows  that  a  good  deal  of  common 
sense  lies  in  the  responses  of  Talmudists.  "  I 
notice,"  he  said,  "that  an  order  has  just  been 
issued  by  His  Grace  the  Duke ;  but  the  Duke  did 
not  issue  it  at  all."  It  may  safely  be  said  that 
those  Jews  who  can  see  a  divine  authority  for 
Purim  and  only  a  human  sanction  for  Hanucah 
are  suffering  from  a  serious  attack  of  spiritual 
twist. 

The  social  concomitants  of  the  Feast  of  Lights 
were,  like  the  feast  itself,  entirely  domestic. 
Even  the  special  foods  show  this.  Cheese  and 
milk  foods  predominated,  for  Judith,  whose 
truculent  heroism  was  associated  with  Hanucah, 
had,  in  the  Jewish  version  of  the  tale,  carried 
cheese  in  her  wallet  when  on  her  perilous  visit 
to  Holofernes.  Other  foods  were  garlic,  and  a 
kind  of  stew  called  in  the  Orient  Ssfing,  re- 
stricted to  the  first  day.  The  evening  meal 
took  place  while  the  lights  brightened  the  home, 
or  soon  after  the  allotted  half-hour  had  elapsed. 
Spirited  hymns  and  table  songs  were  specially 
written,  among  others  by  Ibn  Ezra  himself,  for 
the  occasion.  The  father  then  assembled  his 
children  and  told  them  the  story  of  the  Macca- 
bean struggle.     Drinking  was  rare,  but  an  extra 


HANUCAH   IN  OLDEN    TIMES      151 

glass  was  neither  forbidden  nor  rejected.  The 
hymns  were  most  prolonged  on  the  eighth  night, 
for  the  children  were  encouraged  to  save  up 
the  unburnt  remnants  of  oil  from  night  to 
night  and  make  a  long  holocaust  on  the  final 
evening,  while  psalms  and  songs  resounded. 
These  songs  had  their  special  Hanucah  tunes  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  and  no  doubt  the  home 
tended  greatly  to  foster  that  Chazanuth  which 
we  wrongly  identify  entirely  with  the  syna- 
gogue. Every  one  remembers  how  Bernstein,  in 
his  charming  novel,  Vogele  der  Maggid,  repre- 
sents Golde  as  repeating  at  home  all  the 
Chazan's  trills  and  twirls.  The  home,  too,  re- 
placed in  a  sense  the  synagogue  on  Hanucah 
in  another  function.  As  I  have  shown  else- 
where, house  to  house  begging  was  discouraged 
by  the  medieval  Jews.  But  at  Hanucah  the 
practice  was  allowed,  for  the  feast  was  a  domestic 
rite  in  which  the  poor  might  participate  by 
going  round  collecting  doles  from  every  house- 
hold. Of  course,  Hanucah  too  was  the  time 
for  giving  presents  to  teachers  :  it  is  even  prob- 
able that  their  chief  income  was  derived  from 
the  Hanucah  gifts.  I  say  little  here  about  the 
synagogue  rites  on  Hanucah,  for  they  are  the 
same  now  as  in  the  past.  But  as  Hanucah  was 
essentially  a  woman's  feast,  certain  other  points 
must  bo  added.  This  was  a  favourite  period 
for  the  exchange  of  gifts  between  the  father  of 
a  betrothed  maiden  and  the  bridegroom  elect. 
I    think    it    may    be    worth    while,    as    showing 


152       HANUCAH   IN   OLDEN   TIMES 

several  things,  among  them  the  licence  allowed 
to  women  on  Hanucah,  to  quote  the  13th 
Article  of  the  Statutes  of  the  Jewish  congrega- 
tion at  Avignon.  The  following  regulation  is 
dated  1779: — 

"  Women  and  servants  shall  not  carry  nor  ac- 
company to  the  door  of  the  men's  synagogue 
children  under  the  age  of  four  years  old,  except 
at  the  moment  of  the  sale  of  the  Mitsvoth.  In 
the  latter  case,  the  said  children  shall  be  made 
to  quit  immediately  before  the  reading  of  the 
Pentateuch ;  but  they  may  again  come  in  to 
join  the  procession  when  the  Scroll  is  taken 
back  to  the  Ark.  They  may  also  come  during 
the  Blessings  of  the  Cohanim.  Should  any  child 
be  brought  in  at  any  other  time  by  women,  the 
father  of  the  child  shall  pay  a  fine  of  20  livres. 
Nevertheless,  women  may  enter  the  synagogue  on  all 
the  eight  nights  of  Hanucah." 

The  other  amusements  of  the  feast  were  all 
domestic  in  essence.  There  were  no  dramas 
for  Hanucah  until  very  modern  times,  and  these 
later  Hanucah  plays  do  not  emanate  from 
Russia,  but  from  Germany  and,  strange  to  tell, 
from  America.  Acting  has  only  recently  be- 
come a  home  pastime.  With  the  Jew,  his 
performances  of  plays  were  in  the  Communal 
Hall  on  Purim  and  at  weddings,  not  in  the 
home.  Hence,  I  take  it,  the  absence  of  dramas 
from  the  Hanucah  delights.  Riddles,  acrostics, 
arithmetical  puzzles,  gematrias,  extravagant 
enigmas    called    Ketowes,  to    which    the  number 


HANUCAH   IN   OLDEN    TIMES       153 

forty-four — the  total  of  the  lights  burned  during 
the    whole    eight   days — was    the   answer,  these 
and  similar  mild  joys    reveal  that   the  keynote 
of    the    feast    was    domestic    calm    and    family 
quietude.     In  the  fifteenth  century,  however,  the 
game    of    cards  invaded  the    home,  and    almost 
superseded  all   other   amusements  with  Jews  as 
it    did    with    Christians.       In    many    communal 
enactments    forbidding   the  fascinating    game  as 
an  ordinary  thing,  Hanucah  was  almost  invari- 
ably   placed    among    the    permitted    times.      A 
curious    extension  was  given    to    this  licence  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  for  many  argued  that  the 
freedom  to  play  cards  on  Hanucah  endured  for 
eight  working  days,  and  that  the  two  Sabbaths 
which    sometimes    intervene   must  be    deducted. 
The  addition  of  two  days  was  made  every  year, 
even    when    there    was    but    a    single    Sabbath 
during  the  feast.     Schudt  tells  us  that  the  chief 
Hanucah   card   games    were    loo    and    d,    V ombre. 
He  adds  that  many  Christians  were  scandalised 
at  this  card-playing,  as  Hanucah  often  comes  near 
Christmas,  just  as  Purim,  the  other  card-playino- 
period,  coincided  roughly  with  the  Passion.     In 
England  this  objection  would  not  have  been  felt, 
for  at  the  University  of  Cambridge  the  students 
in  Milton's  time  were  expressly  permitted  to  play 
cards  on  Christmas.     Jews,  in  point  of  fact,  were 
often  very  deferential  to  Christmas.     They  sent 
presents    to    Christian  friends    on   that    festival, 
and,  a  generation  ago,  the  Smyrna  Jews  went  on 
Christmas   day   to   church    to    escort    a   popular 


154       HANUCAH  IN   OLDEN  TIMES 

Consul.  Far  earlier,  two  centuries  back,  in 
Venice,  Jews  visited  their  Gentile  friends  at 
Christmas  and  sang  and  played  with  them  to 
help  them  to  make  merry. 

Though  cards  tended  to  monopolise  the  fair 
field  of  recreation,  two  other  games  have  held  their 
own  on  Hanucah.  With  one,  the  arithmetical 
riddles,  or  Ketowcs,  I  have  already  dealt.  The 
other  was  the  Teetotum.,  or  Trendel,  as  it  is 
called  abroad.  With  what  delight  did  Dukes  (then 
in  London)  write  to  Leopold  Low  at  Szegedin, 
under  the  date  September,  1864:  "I  have  seen 
a  toy  in  London  called  a  Teetotum.  It  is  ex- 
actly like  a  Hanucah  Trendel,  with  English 
letters  instead  of  Hebrew  on  it.  But  why  it  is 
called  by  its  peculiar  name  no  one  can  tell  me." 
Of  course,  the  name  comes  from  the  letter  T,  which 
is  inscribed  on  one  of  the  four  sides  of  the 
toy :  thus  "  T  Totum,"  or  T,  takes  all  This  re- 
minds me  of  the  noted  Latin  epigram,  addressed 
by  the  boy  to  the  twirling  Teetotum  :  "  Te  totum 
amo,  amo  te,  Teetotum." 

It  is  a  very  ancient  game,  known  to  the 
Greeks  and  Romans.  But  why  was  it  specially 
favoured  on  Hanucah?  No  answer  has  ever 
been  given  to  this  natural  question.  It  may 
be  that  the  Teetotum  was  regarded  as  a  very 
innocent  form  of  gambling,  if  that  be  not  alto- 
gether too  harsh  a  word  to  use.  Many  pious 
people  never  played  cards  or  any  other  game  of 
chance,  but  they  may  have  felt  that  so  simple  a 
game  as  this  was  lawful  enough.     But  I  can  now 


HANUCAH  IN  OLDEN   TIMES       155 

supplement  this  with  a  new  suggestion.  The 
Teetotum  is  still  in  parts  of  Ireland  the  chief 
indoor  recreation  of  the  peasantry  at  Christmas- 
tide.  Now  it  is  well  known  that  such  games 
seldom  change  their  seasons.  I  should  not 
wonder  if  the  Teetotum  was  a  favourite  toy  else- 
where at  Christmas.  If  so,  the  Jews  may  have 
transferred  it  to  Hanucah.  For  they  never  in- 
vented their  own  games,  except  those  of  the 
intellectual  species,  such  as  Hanucah  Ketowes. 
The  Ketowes  even  gave  rise  to  a  folk  proverb : 
"  Zechus  Owes,  Kein  Ketowes,"  i.e.,  I  suppose,  the 
merit  of  the  fathers  is  not  the  solution  of  life's 
riddle.  Indeed,  the  moral  of  Hanucah  is,  after 
all,  that  Judaism  must  rely  on  present  effort  by 
the  children  as  well  as  on  the  past  merits  of 
their  sires,  if  it  is  to  remain  in  any  true  sense 
a  "  Feast  of  Light." 


XXII 

THE    HALLEL 

Driven  from  Russia  by  a  local  outbreak  of  in- 
tolerance, a  certain  Jew  arrived  in  London  just 
before  the  Passover  of  1840.  A  scholar  of  the 
old-fashioned  type,  he  also  belonged  to  a  branch 
of  the  Chassidim,  whose  Judaism  is  tinged  with 
emotion,  though  it  is  not  necessarily  based  (as 
is  sometimes  supposed)  on  ignorance.  Our  immi- 
grant, who  afterwards  attained  to  a  position  of 
some  eminence  in  the  Anglo- Jewish  community, 
inquired  into  the  rituals  prevalent  in  the  various 
London  synagogues,  and  found  only  one  (Bevis 
Marks)  in  which  the  Hallel  (Psalms  cxiii.-cxviii.) 
figured  as  part  of  the  service  for  the  Passover 
eve.  The  Hallel  was  for  him  a  significant  factor 
in  the  religious  life.  Hence  he  attached  himself 
to  the  above-named  Sephardic  congregation  with- 
out hesitation  and  with  what  proved  lifelong 
loyalty. 

The  Hallel  has,  no  doubt,  associations  with  the 
Passover.  The  group  of  six  Psalms  which  com- 
pose it  is  known  in  Rabbinical  sources  as  "  the 
Egyptian  Hallel."  The  second  Psalm  of  the 
group  (Psalm  cxiv.) — "  an  exquisite  little  poem 

...  for  perfection  of  form  and  dramatic  vivid- 
ice 


THE   HALLEL  157 

ness  almost  if  not  quite  unrivalled  in  the  Psalter  " 
(Kirkpatrick) — presents  the  great  memory  of  the 
Exodus  from  Egypt,  and  uses  it  not  as  a  memory 
but  as  an  encouragement. 

"  When  Israel  went  out  of  Egypt, 
The  house  of  Jacob  from  a  people  of  strange 

tongue, 
Judah  became  His  sanctuary, 
And  Israel  His  dominion. 

The  sea  saw,  and  fled  : 
The  Jordan  turned  backwards. 
The  mountains  skipped  like  rams, 
The  little  hills  like  lambs." 

Then  with  that  poetic  vision  in  which  present 
and  past  are  interwoven,  the  Psalmist  asks : — 

"  What  aileth  thee,  thou  sea,  that  thou  fleest? 
Thou  Jordan,  that  thou  turnest  back  ? 
Ye  mountains,  that  ye  skip  like  rams  1 
Ye  little  hills  like  young  sheep  1 " 

The  answer  to  these  rhetorical  questions  displays 
inimitable  art.  God's  wondrous  deeds  in  the 
past  are  mado  the  prelude  to  the  author's  sense 
of  the  same  divine  mercy  in  the  present.  Hence 
the  answer  is  no  longer  a  direct  reference  to 
history.  Earth  feels  God's  presence  now  as 
then  ;  earth,  whose  "  stubborn  elements "  are 
transformed  now  as  then  into  means  of  suste- 
nance and  salvation. 

"  Tremble,  thou  earth,  at  the  presence  of  the  Lord, 
At  the  presence  of  the  God  of  Jacob  ; 
Who  tuiiatli  the  rock  into  a  pool  of  water, 
The  flint  into  a  springing  well." 


158  THE   HALLEL 

The  providence  which  we  recognise  is  this  con- 
tinuous providence ;  the  miracles  that  move  us 
are  those  marvels  of  a  far-off  time  which,  as  the 
Synagogue  liturgy  beautifully  puts  it,  "  renew 
themselves  day  by  day."  When  the  "special 
providence"  passes  over  into  the  general,  the 
perennial  God  is  in  His  heaven  and  all  is  right 
with  the  world. 

This  idea,  which  most  modern  expositors  read 
into  the  structure  of  the  Psalm,  was  also  read  into 
it  by  the  Rabbis.  "  Reading  into "  a  biblical 
passage  is  sometimes  fraught  with  mischief ;  here, 
however,  the  result  is  all  gain.  Why  did  Israel 
leave  Egypt  ?  asks  the  Rabbi ;  and  thinking  of 
the  first  lines  of  the  quotation  made  above,  he 
answers,  For  the  sake  of  the  Law  which  Israel 
was  destined  to  receive.  There  is  a  chain  binding 
events.  So,  with  more  daring,  the  latter  Psalms 
in  the  group  were  interpreted  by  some  Rabbis  of 
the  future  Redemption,  of  the  Messianic  age.  In 
Psalm  cxv.  we  have  a  rather  gloomy  picture 
of  the  grave,  of  Sheol,  the  underworld,  here 
termed  "  silence  "  ;  where  "  the  dead  praise  not 
God,  nor  any  that  go  down  into  silence."  It  is 
extraordinary  how  blind  we  are  to  the  greatness 
of  the  Psalter.  It  is  (or  ought  to  be)  easy 
enough  for  us  to  realise  the  possibility  of  the 
soul's  communion  with  God  when  it  is  a  common- 
place of  our  Judaism  to  regard  the  soul  as  an 
immortal  emanation  from  the  divine  soul.  But  to 
arrive  at  such  a  possibility  while  holding  human 
life  as  temporary  and  mortal — the  human  soul 


THE   HALLEL  159 

living  out  its  full  life  in  bodily  coils — hero  was  a 
grand  effort  of  spiritual  force  to  which  what 
other  name  can  we  give  than  inspiration  ?  When 
this  Psalm  was  written,  in  the  second  century 
B.C.,  Israel  was  in  the  throes  of  a  great  transfor- 
mation. The  immortality  of  the  soul  was  a 
doctrine  which  was  just  finding  acceptance  in 
Judaism  under  Hellenic  influence.  But  the  idea 
was  so  compatible  with  Judaism,  was  so  spirit  of 
its  spirit,  that  once  adopted  it  was  indissolubly 
bound  up  with  the  faith.  It  is  possible  that  we 
witness  the  very  transition  in  the  Hallel  itself. 
Contrasted  with  the  "  silence  "  of  Sheol  of  Psalm 
cxv.,  it  it  hard  to  resist  the  suggestion  that  in 
Psalm  cxvi.  the  sacred  singer  has  in  his  mind 
the  life  which  ends  not  in  Sheol,  but  begins 
there. 

"  Return  unto  thy  rest,  0  my  soul ! 
For  the  Lord  hath  dealt  bountifully  with  thee. 

For  Thou  hast  delivered  my  soul  from  death, 
Mine  eyes  from  tears,  my  soul  from  death. 

I  will  walk  before  the  Lord, 
In  the  land  of  the  living." 

To  interpret  thus  is  perhaps  to  "  read  in  "  what  is 
not  there ;  to  interpret  otherwise  may  be  to 
"  read  out "  what  is  there. 

Mention  has  been  made  of  the  structure  of  the 
Hallel,  and  something  more  must  be  said  on  the 
subject.  For  just  as  the  first  Psalms  of  the 
group  point  to  thanksgiving,  so  does  the  last  of 
the  six.       Psalm    cxviii.  is    the    very  climax   of 


160  THE   HALLEL 

jubilant  praise.     Based  on  an  old  refrain,  as  old 
as  the  heart  and  voice  of  Judaism, 

"  0  give  thanks  to  the  Lord,  for  he  is  good  : 
For  His  lovingkindness  endureth  for  ever," 

the  Psalm  calls  upon  assembled  Israel,  laymen 
and  priests,  to  pour  forth  their  joyous  praise. 
It  is  clearly  a  Dedication  hymn ;  we  can  hear  the 
procession  moving  on  its  way  to  the  restored,  re- 
consecrated Temple.  Solos  by  the  leader,  refrains 
by  responsive  choirs,  some  stanzas  thrown  anti- 
phonally  from  those  within  to  those  without  the 
sacred  precincts,  until  the  gates  of  righteousness 
are  opened  and  the  godly  host  enters.  Every 
line,  every  phrase,  has  its  associations  stirring  or 
pathetic.  To  read  it  is  a  liberal  education  in 
religion ;  to  read  it  as  it  should  be,  and  happily 
is  read,  in  the  Synagogue,  is  religion  itself.  For 
the  Temple  has  not  been  reached  by  a  primrose 
path  of  dalliance.  Israel  has  been  through  the 
valley.  Humiliation,  strife,  a  terrible  conflict, 
have  preceded  victory.  Martyrs  have  fallen,  but 
"  Precious  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord  is  the  death  of 
His  saints  " — a  text  which  has  enabled  many  a 
hero  to  die  for  an  ideal,  fearless  of  man  when 
God  was  on  his  side. 

"  I  called  upon  the  Lord  in  straits, 
The  Lord  answered  me  with  en]argement. 
The  Lord  is  on  my  side ;  I  will  not  fear  : 
What  can  man  do  unto  me  ? " 

Here  speaks  the  Jewish  soldier,  the  Maccabean 
warrior,  with  high  praises  of  God  in  his  mouth 


THE   HALLEL  161 

and  a  two-edged  sword  in  his  hand,  stern  to  win 
the  fight,  and  reluctant  to  claim  the  glory  of  it, 
sinking  self  in  the  cause,  man  in  God. 

"  Not  unto  ua,  O  Lord,  not  unto  us, 
But  unto  Thy  name  give  glory, 
For  the  sake  of  Thy  love  and  Thy  truth." 

It  is  very  probable  that  this  whole  118th  Psalm 
is  Maccabean  in  date.  It  certainly  echoes  the 
ideals  of  that  heroic  age ;  reproduces  its  fierce 
energy,  its  lowly  trust.  "  God  is  Lord,  and  hath 
given  us  light,"  may  even  point  to  the  Hanucah 
illuminations.  But  it  is  not  on  small  points 
such  as  this  that  one  rests  the  belief  in  the 
Maccabean  origin  of  the  Psalm.  "  It  breathes 
the  very  spirit  of  Judas,  the  hero,  even  as  it 
celebrates  his  dedication  of  the  purified  Temple : 
that  is  the  'Day  which  the  Lord  hath  made,' 
and  Israel  is  the  '  corner-stone '  "  (Montefiore). 

When  Judas  Maccabeus  rededicated  the  Temple, 
we  are  told,  the  Jews  celebrated  a  feast  after  the 
model  of  Tabernacles.  The  connection  between 
the  Hallel  and  Tabernacles  is  quite  obvious,  as 
has  been  incidentally  shown  in  some  of  the 
earlier  of  these  "  Studies."  From  the  Hallel 
were  derived  the  "  Hosannas,"  the  festal  cry  with 
which  the  priests  encircled  the  place  of  burnt- 
offering  as  they  bound  the  sacrifice  with  cords, 
even  unto  the  horns  of  the  altar.  And  year  by 
year,  as  the  Feast  of  Ingathering  comes  round, 
and  the  autumn  harvest  has  fulfilled  the  hopes  of 
spring ;    when    the    fruition   of   Tabernacles   has 

L 


162  THE  HALLEL 

followed  the  promise  of  the  Passover ;  when, 
after  a  long-drawn-out  struggle  with  the  lower 
self  in  the  solemn  penitential  period,  the  higher 
self  has  by  God's  grace  prevailed,  the  Hallel 
sounding  the  whole  gamut  of  trust  and  despair, 
dejection  and  triumph,  agony  and  release,  with 
praise  running  through  the  whole,  retells  to  Israel 
the  story  of  his  chequered  national  life,  rejected 
by  the  builders  yet  become  the  corner-stone  of 
God's  house,  taunted  as  a  people  God-forsaken 
yet  secure  in  God's  love,  drinking  the  dregs  of 
affliction  yet  bearing  the  cup  of  salvation  to 
his  lips. 

"  0  Israel,  trust  thou  in  the  Lord  ! 
(He  is  their  help  and  their  shield.) 

O  house  of  Aaron,  trust  in  the  Lord  ! 
(He  is  their  help  aud  their  shield.) 

Ye  that  fear  the  Lord,  trust  in  the  Lord  ! 
(He  is  their  help  and  their  shield.)" 

"The  Lord  hath  been  mindful  of  us  :  he  will  bless  us ; 
He  will  bless  the  house  of  Israel ; 
He  will  bless  the  house  of  Aaron. 
He  will  bless  them  that  fear  the  Lord, 
Both  great  and  small." 

A  national  history,  yet  more  than  national.  For 
with  Israel  and  Aaron's  house  "  those  who  fear 
the  Lord  "  are  associated.  "  Those  who  fear  the 
Lord  "  are,  as  many  moderns,  following  the  Rabbis, 
hold,  none  else  than  the  proselytes  to  Judaism. 
And  so  in    the  midst    of   the    Hallel  rings  out 


THE  HALLEL  163 

the  117th  Psalm,  a  Psalm  which  transcends 
nationality  and  absorbs  within  its  scope  the 
whole  of  mankind. 

"0  praise  the  Lord,  all  ye  nations  ; 
Laud  Him,  all  ye  peoples ; 
For  His  kindness  is  mighty  over  us, 
And  His  truth  endureth  for  ever. 
Praise  ye  the  Lord." 

"  The  shortest  of  the  Psalms,"  as  Dr.  Kirkpatrick 
well  puts  it,  "  is  one  of  the  grandest.  Its  invita- 
tion to  all  nations  to  join  in  praising  the  Lord 
for  His  goodness  to  Israel  is  virtually  a  recogni- 
tion that  the  ultimate  object  of  Israel's  calling 
was  the  salvation  of  the  world."  When  Israel 
truly  recognises  this,  the  Hallel  will  again  re- 
ceive its  antiphonal  setting,  Israel  leading  the 
song,  with  the  world  as  answering  chorus.  The 
ministering  angels,  say  the  Rabbis,  desired  to 
sing  Hallel  to  God  when  the  Egyptians  were 
overwhelmed  at  the  Red  Sea.  But  God  refused. 
"  Shall  ye  sing  praises  unto  Me,  while  My  children 
are  sinking  in  the  sea  ? "  Israel  can  sing  no 
true  Hallel  while  its  mission  to  God's  other 
children  is  ignored  or  even  belittled. 

Nor  is  this  world-embracing  idea  restricted  to 
the  117th  Psalm.  The  Hallel  opens  with  the 
thought.  Psalm  cxiii.  summons  the  servants  of 
the  Lord  to  praise  His  name,  which  is  blessed 
from  the  rising  of  the  sun  to  the  going  down 
thereof.  One  cannot  fail  to  recall  the  similar 
phrase  in  Malachi  (i.  11):  "  For,  from  the  rising 


164  THE  HALLEL 

of  the  sun  even  to  the  going  down  of  the  same, 
My  name  is  great  among  the  Gentiles ;  and  in 
every  place  incense  is  offered  to  My  name  and  a 
pure  offering ;  for  My  name  is  great  among  the 
Gentiles,  saith  the  Lord."  In  Malachi  there  is  a 
deep  and  biting  sarcasm  in  the  thought ;  for  the 
Israel  of  his  day  is  perfunctory  and  even  con- 
temptuously indifferent,  while  the  rest  of  the 
world,  with  varying  rituals  and  creeds,  is  in 
essence  true  and  loyal  to  God.  But  in  the 
Hallel  there  is  no  sarcasm ;  the  nations  are 
bidden  to  praise,  but  Israel,  the  servant  of  God, 
leads.      Psalm  cxiii.  opens  : — 

"  Praise  ye  the  Lord. 
Praise,  0  ye  servants  of  the  Lord. 
Praise  the  name  of  the  Lord." 

And  in  Psalm  cxvi.  comes  Israel's  loyal  accept- 
ance of  this  honourable  servitude  : — 

"  O  Lord,  truly  I  am  Thy  servant : 
I  am  Thy  servant,  the  son  of  Thine  handmaid  : 
Thou  hast  loosed  my  bonds. 
I  will  offer  to  Thee  the  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving, 
And  will  call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord. 
I  will  pay  my  vows  unto  the  Lord, 
Yea  in  the  presence  of  all  His  people  ; 
In  the  courts  of  the  Lord's  house, 
In  the  midst  of  thee,  0  Jerusalem. 
Hallelujah  ! " 

All  this  is  in  Psalm  cxvi.  the  answer  to  the 
question :  "  What  shall  I  render  unto  the  Lord 
for    all    His    benefits    towards    me  ? "      All    His 


THE  HALLEL  165 

benefits:  for  as  Psalm  cxiii.  so  finely  puts  it, 
God  is  in  heaven  yet  condescends  to  think 
of  man. 

"The  Lord  is  high  above  all  nations, 
And  His  glory  above  the  heavens. 

Who  is  like  unto  the  Lord  our  God, 

That  hath  His  seat  on  high, 

Yet  humbleth  Himself  to  behold 

The  things  that  are  in  heaven  and  earth. 

He  raiseth  up  the  poor  out  of  the  dust, 

And  lifteth  up  the  needy  from  the  dunghill ; 

That  He  may  set  him  with  princes, 

Even  with  the  princes  of  His  people. 

He  maketh  the  barren  woman  to  keep  house, 

A  joyful  mother  of  children. 

Hallelujah  ! " 

Israel's  God  is  transcendent.  He  is  not  to  bu 
measured  by  man's  finitude.  But  though  trans- 
cendent, high  above  earth  and  man,  He  is  not 
far  off.  Outside  the  world,  He  is  also  in  it. 
He  loves  to  intervene  in  human  affairs,  He  con- 
descends to  interest  Himself  in  man's  concerns. 
To  this  qualification  of  the  transcendental  view  of 
the  divine  nature  we  shall  return  in  the  chapter 
on  "  Adon  01am." 

And  it  is  this  divine  sympathy  with  humanity 
that  prompts  man's  praise  of  the  Highest.  The 
Jew  singing  the  Hallel,  to  melodies  varying  with 
the  festival  but  with  unvarying  zest  and  sincerity, 
thinks  of  God  in  this  twofold  aspect  of  aloofness 
and  proximity,  but  chiefly  of  him  in  the  latter 
aspect.       And  so  our    Russian   immigrant  loved 


166  THE  HALLEL 

the  Hallel.  He  could  not  spare  it  from  the 
Passover  eve.  He  had  suffered,  God  had  saved 
him.  He  could  not  but  praise.  All  sacrifices 
shall  cease  in  the  world  to  come,  said  the  Rabbi ; 
but,  he  added,  the  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving  shall 
endure  for  ever  and  ever.     Hallelujah  ! 


XXIII 

THE    FOUR   SONS 

The  Episode  of  the  Four  Sons  stands  out,  even 
amid  the  many  felicities  of  the  Passover  Seder, 
as  a  supremely  happy  instance  of  insight  into 
human  nature.  The  Law,  we  are  told,  speaks 
of  four  types  of  children :  the  Wise,  the  Wicked, 
the  Simple,  and  the  Son  Who  Cannot  Ask. 
Three  of  the  four  are  questioners,  only  one  is 
dumb.  Is  not  this  the  right  proportion  ?  Man 
has  been  defined  as  this  animal  or  that — 
certainly  three-fourths  of  man  is  a  questioning 
animal.  The  three  sons  who  ask  in  varying 
phraseology  questions  concerning  the  Passover, 
represent  all  the  inquisitive  phases  of  the 
human  intellect.  But  only  one  of  the  three — 
the  "  simple  son  " — asks  his  question  without  bias 
or  motive.  A  full  half  of  us  aro  wanting  in  this 
single-hearted  directness.  A  motive  lies  behind 
our  questions,  whether  it  be  a  good  or  an  evil 
motive.  The  distinction  between  the  wise  son 
and  the  wicked  does  not  lie  in  their  questions, 
but  in  their  ultimate  aims.  The  wise  son  has 
the  truer  philosophy,  for  his  question — "  What 
is  this  Passover  for  us?" — leads  him  not  from 
but  to  his  kind.     The  wicked — with  his  cynical 


168  THE  FOUR  SONS 

question,  "  What  is  all  this  for  you  ?  " — demands 
of  life  its  secrets ;  he  would  pluck  out  its  mystery 
in  order  to  tell  us  in  the  end  that  he  stands  out- 
side our  petty  joys  and  pains.  He  is  wicked, 
not  because  he  scoffs  or  doubts,  but  because 
in  the  struggle  in  which  he  might  bear  a  hand 
he  stands  outside. 

This  was  partly  the  reason,  I  should  think, 
why,  in  most  of  the  illustrated  copies  of  the 
Passover  Haggadah,  the  wicked  son  is  depicted 
as  a  soldier,  armed  with  deadly  weapons.  In 
the  Middle  Ages  the  Jews  had  a  bad  opinion  of 
militarism,  an  opinion  derived  from  bitter  ex- 
perience. The  soldier  was  the  foe  of  society, 
not  its  friend.  The  wise  son,  naturally  enough, 
wears  a  sedate  beard,  and  holds  himself  like  a 
serious  sage  in  ample  academic  robes.  The 
simple  son  stands  in  a  careless  attitude  supported 
by  a  shepherd's  staff,  the  voiceless  son  holds 
his  hands  in  the  air. 

The  source  of  this  whole  Episode  of  the  Four 
Sons  is  the  Midrash  (Mechilta)  and  the  Talmud 
(Palestinian).  In  the  Bible  four  expressions  are 
used  with  regard  to  the  duty  of  narrating  the 
story  of  the  departure  from  Egypt.  These  are : 
Deuteronomy  vi.  20 ;  Exodus  xii.  26 ;  Exodus 
xiii.  14 ;  Exodus  xiii.  8.  These  passages,  as  the 
Midrash  saw,  fit  roughly  the  four  characters,  but 
much  ingenuity  has  been  wasted  in  explaining 
the  details.  (For  those  who  are  interested  in 
the  matter,  it  will  suffice  to  say  that  the  key 
to  the  chief  difficulty  is  found  in  the  fact  that 


THE  FOUR  SONS  169 

tho  Jerusalem  Talmud  read  ws  for  you  in  Deut. 
vi.  20  ;  this  reading  is  found  in  many  of  the 
oldest  MSS.  of  the  Haggadah.)  I  do  not  pro- 
pose to  discuss  these  details,  but  one  point  has 
somehow  been  missed  by  most  commentators. 
It  will  be  observed  that,  in  replying  to  the 
wicked  son  and  to  the  son  who  does  not  know 
how  to  ask,  the  self-same  text  is  quoted.  Why 
is  this  ?  Are  the  wicked  and  dumb  on  a  level  ? 
The  Kolbo  replies  in  the  affirmative,  for  he  who 
knows  not  how  to  ask,  who  is  so  indifferent  that 
his  curiosity  remains  dormant  when  he  sees  the 
table  prepared  for  the  Passover  service,  such  a 
one  does  not  belong  to  the  class  for  whom  God 
would  work  a  miracle  like  the  redemption  from 
Egypt.  There  is  a  deep  truth  hero,  and  it  is 
a  fine  rebuke  to  those  who  decry  intellectual 
curiosity.  The  Kolbo  would  tell  us  that  theirs 
is  the  sin,  if  the  young  are  so  dead  to  the  call 
of  religion  that  they  have  no  impulse  to  ask  a 
question  about  it. 

Educationists  have  often  remarked  on  the 
change  which  comes  over  a  child  between,  say, 
its  eighth  and  fifteenth  years.  At  first,  the  child 
is  always  asking  questions ;  later  on  he  asks  far 
fewer,  lastly  he  asks  none.  Why  ?  Because 
while  the  child  can  and  will  ask,  the  parent 
cannot  or  will  not  answer.  It  is  the  first  step 
that  costs.  It  is  the  greatest  possible  mistake 
to  repress  questions,  to  put  the  child  off  with 
"  Wait  till  you  are  older."  You  thus  stunt  the 
natural  growth  of  an  inquiring  mind.     The  young 


170  THE   FOUR  SONS 

child  asks  all  sorts  of  questions  about  God  and 
the  Bible,  and  many  parents  give  either  answers 
that  they  know  to  be  false,  or  give  no  answers 
at  all.  Hence  the  phenomenon  of  the  deadly 
transformation  of  childish  curiosity  into  adult  in- 
difference ;  the  boy  asks,  the  lad  no  longer  cares. 

The  Passover  Haggadah  ought  to  teach  Jewish 
parents  a  wiser  policy.  If  there  is  one  fact 
generally  understood  regarding  the  Passover 
Home  Service,  it  is  that  the  child  has  a  special 
part  and  right  in  it.  Possibly  the  very  title  of 
the  service  is  derived  from  the  Four  Sons.  The 
name  Haggadah,  or  narrative,  perhaps  originated 
in  a  text  (quoted  above),  in  which  is  formulated 
the  duty  of  telling  the  child  the  story  of  the 
Redemption:  "And  thou  shalt  tell  (higgadta) 
thy  son  in  that  day,  saying,  It  is  because  of 
that  which  the  Lord  did  for  me  when  I  came 
forth  out  of  Egypt "  (Exod.  xiii.  8.)  Admittedly, 
the  term  Haggadah  may,  in  the  present  case,  be 
only  a  particular  use  of  the  word  in  its  ordinary 
meaning  of  exposition  or  narration  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. The  body  of  the  Passover  Haggadah  is  an 
exposition  of  certain  texts  from  Deuteronomy  xxvi. 
Moreover  the  term  Haggadah  is  not  applied  to 
the  Passover  service  in  the  Mishnah,  but  is  only 
so  used  in  the  Babylonian  Talmud.  Still,  the 
connection  between  the  title  and  the  text  just 
cited  is  too  close  to  be  ignored,  and  one  may  rest 
firm  in  the  belief  that  the  child  gave  the  name 
to  the  rite  of  which  he  is  the  hero. 

We  scarcely   maintain    in   modern   times   the 


THE  FOUR  SONS  171 

prominence  duo  to  the  child  on  the  Passover 
night.  In  the  first  place,  so  far  as  England 
is  concerned,  the  child  is  hardly  ever  allowed 
his  old  privilege  of  asking  his  questions  in  the 
vernacular.  The  painful  recitation  of  a  set 
paragraph  in  difficult  and  archaic  Hebrew  does 
not  arouse  that  vivid,  real  interest  which  would 
be  produced  by  encouraging  the  child  to  put 
a  few  simple  questions  spontaneously  in  the 
child's  mother  tongue.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
enter  historically  into  the  point ;  it  is  unnecessary 
to  explain  how,  in  the  medieval  French  rite  as 
used  also  in  the  then  French-speaking  Anglo- 
Jewry,  the  first  paragraphs  of  the  Haggadah  were 
translated  into  French.  Nor  need  I  recall  the 
passage  in  the  Maharil,  which  informs  us  that 
in  the  early  fifteenth  century  the  children  of 
the  Rhinelands  used  German  in  the  Passover 
Haggadah,  not  only  without  rebuke  but  even 
with  warm  approval.  One  modern  fact  is  worth 
a  library  of  historical  allusions.  In  Jerusalem  I 
observed  that  the  Arabic-speaking  Yemenite  Jews 
made  their  children  ask  their  questions  in  Arabic, 
and  I  have  since  bought  a  copy  of  their  Haggadah 
(printed  in  Jerusalem)  in  which  the  only  Arabic 
part  of  the  book  is  a  shortened  summary  of 
the  child's  questions  and  the  father's  answers  (a 
dozen  lines  in  all),  and  this  part  is  printed  in 
far  larger  letters  than  the  rest.  It  is  very  signi- 
ficant that  in  this  Yemenite  prayer  book  we 
are  quite  clearly  informed  that :  "  It  is  usual  for 
the  child  to  ask  in  Arabic." 


172  THE  FOUR  SONS 

Such  wisdom  seems  beyond  us  in  modern 
England.  And  we  commit  another  folly.  The 
ancient  prescriptions  are  full  of  directions  against 
delay  in  beginning  the  Haggadah.  The  table 
must  be  set  by  day,  so  that  the  Seder  can  begin 
directly  night  falls,  and  so  forth.  All  this  was 
for  the  benefit  of  the  children.  In  England,  as 
in  foreign  parts,  we  are  far  too  late  in  beginning 
the  Haggadah.  The  children  are  always  asleep 
before  the  end  because  of  this  tardiness,  and  also 
because  we  (in  common  with  foreign  Jews)  have 
changed  the  good  old  Mishnaic  custom  in  which 
the  whole  Haggadah  preceded  supper,  and  was 
not  cut  into  two  by  the  meal.  It  is  altogether 
indefensible  to  defer  the  synagogue  service  on 
the  second  night  merely  in  order  to  say  the 
Blessing  of  the  Omer.  In  many  editions  of  the 
Haggadah  the  Blessing  of  the  Omer  will  be 
found.  Why  ?  Because  it  is  best  on  the  Pass- 
over night  to  say  this  Blessing  at  home  and  not 
in  the  synagogue.  Adults  may,  as  of  old,  sit 
up  till  midnight  or  dawn  to  discourse  of  the 
departure  from  Egypt,  but  the  Seder  is  for  the 
children  also  and  first  of  all,  and  the  synagogue 
service  on  the  Passover  should  on  both  nights 
begin  and  end  as  early  as  possible. 

These  are  not  trifles;  they  display  a  pitiful 
indifference  to  the  child.  We  must  make 
Judaism  once  more  interesting  to  young  Israel, 
must  arouse  curiosity  and  frankly  and  fully 
satisfy  it.  True  we  must  discriminate ;  what  is 
suitable  to  one  child  of  one  age  is  not  suitable 


THE   FOUR  SONS  173 

to  every  child  of  every  age.  The  wise  son  in 
the  Episode  is  alone  he  to  whom  the  law  of 
Aphikomon  is  explained.  The  Aphikomon  was 
one  of  the  after-dishes  which  followed  the  chief 
dish,  some  dessert  or  bonne  louche.  Now,  in  the 
Mishnah  which  treats  of  the  Passover  one  of 
the  last  paragraphs  refers  to  this  Aphikomon. 
Hence,  when  the  parent  is  bidden  to  tell  the  wise 
son  about  the  law  of  Aphikomon,  the  meaning  is 
that  nothing  is  to  be  withheld  from  him,  he 
must  be  told  everything  from  alpha  to  omega. 
Some  children,  no  doubt,  must  be  treated  more 
tenderly,  and  not  introduced  to  the  whole  story 
at  one  sitting.  But  the  child,  of  whatever  age 
and  intellect,  must  be  allowed  or  made  to  ask, 
and  must  be  answered  truthfully,  though  the 
answer  must  be  adapted  to  the  child's  capacity. 
That  capacity  is  greater  than  many  of  us  think. 
The  mother  who  deals  most  faithfully  with  her 
children  in  this  respect  is  the  least  likely  to  find 
a  "  wicked  son  "  in  her  nest.  She  is  indeed  the 
Virtuous  Woman,  whose  "  children  shall  rise  up 
and  call  her  blessed." 


XXIV 

"ADON   OLAM" 

The  medieval  Hebrew  hymn,  "  Adon  Olam " 
(•'  Lord  of  the  Universe  "),  runs  as  follows  in  the 
Rev.  S.  Singer's  prose  version  ("  Authorised 
Daily  Prayer  Book,"  p.  3). 

"  He  is  Lord  of  the  Universe,  who  reigned  ere  any  creature 

yet  was  formed  : 
At  the  time  when  all  things  were  made  by  His  desire,  then 

was  His  name  proclaimed  King. 
And  after  all  things  shall  have  had  an  end,  He  alone,  the 

dreaded  one,  shall  reign  ; 
Who  was,  who  is,  and  who  will  be  in  glory. 
And  He  is  One,  and  there  is  no  second  to  compare  to  Him,  to 

consort  with  Him  : 
Without  beginning,  without  end  :   to  Him  belong  strength 

and  dominion. 
And  He  is  my  God — my  Redeemer  liveth — and  a  rock  in  my 

travail  in  time  of  distress  ; 
And  He  is  my  banner  and  my  refuge,  the  portion  of  my  cup 

on  the  day  when  I  call. 
Into  His  hand  I  commend  my  spirit,  when  I  sleep  and  when 

I  wake ; 
And  with  my  spirit,  my  body  also  :   the  Lord  is  with  me, 

and  I  will  not  fear." 

A  great  German  writer  said :  "  To  understand 
a  poet  you  must  go  to  the  poet's  land."  That 
this  oft-quoted  maxim  is  true,  need  not  be  dis- 

174 


'ADON   OLAM"  175 

puted.  You  cannot  understand  the  Greek 
dramatists  unless  you  know  something  of  the 
life  of  Athens  in  the  fifth  century  B.C.  You 
miss  half  the  meaning  of  Shakespeare  unless  you 
are  familiar  with  the  England  of  Elizabeth. 

So  is  it  to  a  large  extent  with  the  Bible.  The 
land  throws  light  on  the  Book.  In  some  cases 
the  Book  is  unintelligible  without  a  knowledge 
of  the  land.  Who  can  appreciate  the  message 
of  Jeremiah,  unless  the  political  situation  of 
Jeremiah's  day  is  realised  ? 

Thus  the  maxim  is  true.  But  there  is  another 
side  on  which  it  is  not  so  true.  What  if  the 
poet's  land  bo  the  human  heart  ?  In  that  case, 
the  only  historical  or  geographical  knowledge 
required  is  a  knowledge  of  one's  own  heart.  A 
whole  series  of  the  poems  which  have  most 
moved  humanity  have  been  anonymous.  There 
are  many  Psalms  whose  authorship  and  date 
are  not  known  with  precision.  These  Psalms 
speak  to  us  with  the  voice,  not  of  this  or  that 
poet,  but  with  the  voice  of  poetry  itself.  The 
personality  of  the  authors  is  veiled  in  mystery, 
yet  the  Psalms  touch  our  innermost  personality. 

Among  the  later  hymns  of  the  Synagogue, 
written  almost  entirely  in  the  Middle  Ages,  there 
are  many  line  lyrics  whose  authors  we  know  well, 
whose  names  and  careers  are  as  familiar  as  their 
work.  In  the  Jewish  Service  Book,  Ibn  Gebirol 
and  Jehuda  Halevi  are  well  represented ;  gifted 
poets  both,  who  added  immortal  songs  to  Israel's 
golden    treasury.       From    the    Arab    culture    of 


176  "ADON   OLAM" 

Moorish  Spain,  these  writers  drew  ornament  and 
style  wherewith  to  re-gild 'Israel's  harp,  tarnished 
with  disuse,  yet  ready  to  respond  again  to  the 
inspired  artist's  touch.  To  appreciate  the  genius 
of  these  poets,  it  is  useful  to  know  their  careers 
and  the  conditions  of  their  age.  But  the  finest 
poem  added  to  our  liturgy  since  Bible  times,  the 
most  popular,  the  most  commonly  used,  is  anony- 
mous. Research,  keen  and  constant,  has  so  far 
failed  to  discover  the  author  and  date  of  the 
hymn  "  Adon  Olam."  All  that  we  can  assert  with 
confidence  is  that  "  Adon  Olam "  belongs  to  the 
Gaonic  age,  but  we  cannot  even  assign  the 
century  which  saw  its  composition.  Do  we  feel 
this  as  loss  ?  Nay,  we  can  quite  understand 
"  Adon  Olam,"  despite  our  ignorance  of  its  date  or 
authorship.  The  beauty  of  its  form,  the  sim- 
plicity of  its  language,  the  sublimity  of  its 
thought,  all  these  clearly  recognisable  qualities 
are  not  more  insistent  than  is  the  personal 
appeal  which  it  makes  to  every  Jewish  heart  and 
mind.  It  is  at  once  elevated  and  tender.  It  pro- 
nounces in  its  opening  lines  the  lonely  majesty 
of  God  ;  it  ends  off  with  the  most  human  of 
human  cries. 

But  before  we  come  to  the  internal  beauties  of 
the  hymn,  a  little  more  must  be  said  of  its  ex- 
ternals. The  Hebrew  of"  Adon  Olam  "  is  metrical, 
and  every  line  ends  with  the  same  sound.  Both 
these  features  mark  off  the  medieval  from  the 
biblical  Hebrew  poetry.  In  the  Bible  there  is 
artistic  form,  rhythm,  a  harmonious  modulation 


"ADON   OLAM"  177 

of  phrases,  a  parallelism  of  lines,  but  there  is  no 
discernible  rigidity  of  metre,  and  there  is  certainly 
no  regular  rhyme.  Medieval  Hebrew  poetry  thus 
assumed  moretricious  fetters  to  its  freedom,  and 
I  venture  to  doubt  whether  the  genius  of  the 
Hebrew  language  will  ever  regain  its  full  beauty 
and  power  in  the  poetical  realm  so  long  as 
Hebrew  writers  misapply  to  Hebrew  the  uncon- 
genial restraints  of  rhyme  and  scansion.  But 
there  aro  masterpieces  which  must  give  the  critic 
pause,  for  hi  a  hymn  such  as  "  Adon  Olam  "  rhyme 
and  metre  prevail,  yet  no  evil  results;  on  the 
contrary,  one  can  detect  good.  For  the  metrical 
form,  with  its  regular  recurrent  beats,  has  wedded 
"  Adon  Olam  "  to  simple  melody  such  as  all  can 
sing.  The  tunes  composed  for  "  Adon  Olam  "  are 
among  the  happiest  efforts  of  Jewish  composers, 
and  of  Jewish  adaptors  of  other  people's  tunes. 

Again,  externally,  "  Adon  Olam "  has  gained 
enormously  by  a  happy  accident.  Baer,  the 
great  commentator  on  the  Jewish  liturgy,  tolls 
U3  that  he  does  not  know  how  this  accident 
occurred,  and  he  rather  seems  to  regret  it.  If 
you  will  turn  to  page  3  of  the  "  Authorised  Daily 
Prayer  Book,"  you  will  see  that  the  Hebrew  of 
"  Adon  Olam  "  contains,  in  the  Ashkenazic  version, 
ten  lines,  but  originally  "  Adon  Olam  "  containod 
twelve  lines,  all  of  which  are  still  used  in  the 
Spanish  and  some  other  rites.  One  is  tempted 
to  think  that  these  extra  lines  are  an  inter- 
polation, but  if  (as  seems  likely)  they  are 
original,  then  never  was  there  a  more  fortunate 

II 


178  "ADON   OLAM" 

instance  of  maiming.  The  extra  or  omitted 
lines  belong  between  lines  6  and  7  of  our  version. 
Here  is  an  exact  translation  of  the  expunged 
verses :  "  Without  comparison,  similitude,  diver- 
sity, mutation,  conjunction,  or  divisibility,  great 
is  He  in  power  and  excellency."  Every  one  of 
these  terms  is  technically  metaphysical,  and  some 
of  the  corresponding  Hebrew  words  are  so  late 
that  they  are  most  probably  medieval  formations. 
Heine  must  have  been  thinking  of  these  omitted 
lines,  and  of  another  dogmatic  hymn,  "  Yigdal," 
when  he  uttered  his  famous  sarcasm  that  the 
Jews  pray  in  metaphysics.  So  wonderful,  how- 
ever, is  the  change  effected  in  the  whole  character 
of  "Adon  Olam"  by  the  suppression  of  those 
technical  lines,  that  some  will  be  surprised  to 
be  told  that  "  Adon  Olam  "  is  a  dogmatic  hymn 
at  all.  Yet  the  main  charm  of  "  Adon  Olam  "  lies 
in  the  subtle  manner  in  which  Jewish  dogmatics 
are  associated  with  the  very  simplest  spiritual 
emotions. 

What  are  the  dogmas  that  "Adon  Olam  "  enun- 
ciates ?  In  the  first  four  lines  we  have  a 
picture  of  God,  the  eternal  God,  existing  before 
the  creation  of  the  world,  existing  still  when  the 
world  shall  cease  to  be.  Between  the  eternal 
past  and  the  eternal  future  comes  the  world  of 
time.  Here  we  have  purely  Jewish  dogmatics. 
Aristotle  held  that  the  world  was  eternal,  Judaism 
held  that  it  was  created.  It  is  God  alone  who 
is  eternal.  Further  Judaism  conceives  of  God 
as  Something  apart  from  His  world.      This,  put 


"ADON   OLAM"  179 

into  philosophical  language,  is  what  is  meant  by 
saying  that  Judaism  regards  God  as  transcen- 
dental. He  transcends  man  and  the  universe. 
God  is  incomparable,  the  mind  cannot  grasp  or 
define  him.  He  is  "  deep,  deep,  beyond  all  fathom- 
ing; far,  far,  beyond  all  measuring."  He  contains 
space,  space  does  not  contain  Him.  Now,  if 
Judaism  had  ended  there,  we  should,  indeed, 
have  a  great  God,  but  a  God  so  far  removed  from 
humanity,  so  unapproachable,  that  an  intimate 
spiritual  relation  between  man  and  His  Maker 
would  be  impossible.  In  fact,  this  is  where 
Mohammedanism  has  ended.  In  Mohamme- 
danism God  is  so  transcendental,  so  removed  from 
the  world  of  man,  so  completely  an  Abstraction, 
that  communion  between  the  human  soul  and 
the  divine  loses  much  of  its  emotional  value. 
Mohammedanism  has  thus  produced  no  psalm  or 
hymn  which  has  been  incorporated  into  the 
Western  world's  spiritual  store.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  opposite  extreme  is  equally 
dangerous.  The  immanent  God  dwells  within 
the  human  soul  as  well  as  within  the  world.  If 
you  push  the  transcendental  theory  too  far, 
God  becomes  an  abstraction ;  if  you  push  the 
immanent  theory  too  far,  God  becomes  incarnate 
in  man. 

Thus,  at  the  one  extreme  stands  Mohamme- 
danism, and  at  the  other  Christianity.  Judaism 
stands  between.  God,  in  the  Jewish  view,  is  at 
once  transcendental  and  immanent ;  He  is  not 
man,  yet  man  is  akin  to  Him  :  He  is  high  above 


180  "ADON   OLAM" 

the   world,  yet   is  nigh  to  them  that  call  upon 
Him.     The    Law    brings    God    to    man ;    prayer 
brings  man  to  God.     The  revelation  of  God  to 
man  is   the   ladder   by  which   God  descends  to 
man,  by  which  man  rises  to  meet  God  as  it  were 
half-way.     Jewish  theology  is,  in  many  respects, 
a  harmony  between  opposites,  and  in  no  respect 
is  it  so  successful  as  in  its  harmony  between  the 
c-randeur  of  God  and  the  lowliness  of  the  human 
soul,  between  the  Father  in  heaven  and  the  child 
on  earth.     To  quit  these  difficult  speculations,  it 
is  almost  astounding  to  notice  the  felicitous  ease 
with  which  "  Adon  Olam,"  starting  with  a  most 
transcendental  view  of  God,  refuses  to  rest  there, 
but  assumes  a  more  and  more  immanent  theory 
as   it  proceeds.     It   is  less    a  harmony    than    a 
transition.       The    God    who    stands    high   above 
creation  is  the  One  into  whose  hand  man  com- 
mits himself  without  fear.     The  Majestic  King 
is  also  the  Redeemer.     The  great  lone  God  is  a 
Refuge  in  man's  distress.     He  does  not  merely 
raise  a  banner,  He  is  the  Banner;  He  does  not 
only  hold  out    the  cup  of  salvation,  He  is  the 
consummate   Cup.     Let   us    now  examine    some 
of  the  figures  and  phrases  of  "  Adon  Olam  "  more 
closely. 

God  was  before  the  world.  God  will  be  after 
the  world — yet :  "  At  the  time  when  all  things 
were  made  by  His  desire,  then  was  His  name 
proclaimed  King."  God  reigned,  but  was  only 
known  as  King  when  man  was  there  to  pro- 
claim Him.      God  is,  as  it  were,  effectively  King 


"ADON  OLAM"  181 

when  man  acknowledges  His  kingship.  And 
so,  according  to  the  Rabbis,  the  first  duty  of 
the  Israelite  is  to  accept  the  Divine  Kingship — 
the  duty  which  is  fulfilled  in  words  when  the 
worshipper  on  reciting  "  Hear,  O  Israel,  the  Lord 
our  God,  the  Lord  is  One,"  follows  this  up  with 
the  response :  "  Blessed  be  the  name  of  the 
glory  of  His  Kingdom  for  ever  and  ever."  This 
response  does  not  occur  in  the  Scriptures  but 
was  the  form  of  adoration  used  in  the  Temple 
when  God's  name  was  pronounced.  But  the 
duty  is  only  half-fulfilled  by  verbal  homage. 
The  Jew  must  accept  "  the  yoke  of  the  kingdom  " 
in  deed  as  well  as  in  word.  In  humble  obedience, 
in  eager  service,  in  willing  self-sacrifice,  he  must 
manifest  allegiance  to  his  King.  His  life  must 
so  reveal  the  effects  of  His  reign  over  him  that 
all  the  world  will  yearn  to  enter  His  service,  and 
the  Lord  may  in  truth  be  King  over  all  the 
earth,  the  ultimate  goal  attained,  and  He  reign- 
ing alone  supreme.  It  is  a  responsibility  as 
glorious  as  it  is  grave  that  "  Adon  Olam  "  implies. 
We  enthrone  God  when  we  are  loyal  to  Him ; 
we  dethrone  God  when  we  are  faithless.  As  the 
Rabbis  said,  if  the  community  of  Israel,  fails  to 
bear  the  yoke  of  the  kingdom,  with  its  privi- 
leges and  obligations,  then  it  profanes  God's 
name.  The  dignity  and  significance  of  God's 
Kingship  is  lowered  if  they  who  should  be  the 
first  among  His  subjects  are  first  among  His 
rebels.  Though  God  reigns  on  despite  such 
disloyalty,  the  world  is  relegated  to  that  primeval 


182  "ADON   OLAM" 

chaos  in  which  God  was,  yet  no  man  lived  to 
proclaim  Him  King.  But  God  "dwelleth  amid 
the  praises  of  Israel." 

Then  "  Adon  Olam  "  proceeds  to  enunciate  the 
dogma  of  the  Divine  Unity  :  "  And  He  is  One, 
and  there  is  no  second  to  compare  to  Him,  to 
consort  with  Him:  Without  beginning,  without 
end  :  To  Him  belong  strength  and  dominion." 
The  dogma  of  the  unity,  expressed  in  these 
unequivocal  terms,  remains  specifically  the  dis- 
tinguishing mark  of  Judaism.  But  though  "  Adon 
Olam  "  is  in  this  matter  uncompromisingly  Jewish, 
there  is  nothing  of  particularism  in  the  whole 
poem.  "  Adon  Olam  "  is  not  only  one  of  the  most 
Jewish,  it  is  also  one  of  the  most  universalistic 
of  the  medieval  Hebrew  hymns.  "  Yigdal "  is  a 
dogmatic  hymn,  which  contains  articles  of  creed 
which  many  Jews  do  not  accept ;  "  Adon  Olam  "  is 
an  expression  of  the  Judaism  of  the  undivided 
house  of  Israel.  But  more  than  this.  Though 
thoroughly  Jewish,  "  Adon  Olam  "  is  also  human- 
itarian. God  is  One,  and  as  a  corollary  mankind 
is  one.  In  all  the  wealth  of  images  by  which 
"Adon  Olam"  illustrates  God's  love  and  providence, 
the  appeal  is  never  racial;  it  is  God's  children 
that  the  hymn  has  thought  for.  It  is  note- 
worthy that  "  Adon  Olam  "  derives  one  of  its  finest 
phrases  from  Job — itself,  perhaps,  the  most  uni- 
versalistic book  in  the  Bible.  Job,  in  the  depth 
of  his  sorrow,  exclaimed :  "  I  know  that  my  Re- 
deemer liveth,"  and  this  phrase  is  taken  up,  in 
a  different  sense,  perhaps,  in  "  Adon  Olam  "  :    "And 


"ADON   OLAM"  183 

He  is  my  God — my  Redeemer  liveth — a  Rock 
in  my  travail  in  time  of  distress." 

In  understanding  this  figure  of  the  Rock,  one 
must  not  think  of  the  sea,  for  the  figure  is  taken 
from  the  hills.  In  Palestine  the  fortified  places 
are  all  on  heights,  in  fact  the  chief  cities  lie  on 
hill  slopes.  The  Rock  of  "  Adon  Olam  "  is  such 
a  mountain-stronghold,  whither  the  men  of  the 
plains  could  flee  for  refuge  from  their  foes. 
Steadfast  as  the  hills,  the  Divine  Rock  is  im- 
movable, impregnable.  Then,  God  is  also  a 
Banner,  a  rallying  point  fixed  on  one  of  these 
mountain  -  heights,  calling  the  fugitive  home, 
cheering  the  weak-hearted,  at  once  an  incentive 
to  courage  and  a  symbol  of  safety.  And  these 
figures  are  finely  rounded  off  with  the  phrase: 
"  He  is  the  portion  of  my  cup  whenever  I  call," 
the  cup  of  salvation,  of  good  fortune,  and  happi- 
ness, such  as  God  holds  ready,  if  man  will  but 
ask  for  it,  or  take  it  from  Him  unasked,  and  set 
it  to  his  lips. 

And  now  we  reach  the  most  affecting  stanza 
of  all.  We  began  with  the  majestic  God,  we 
end  with  the  lowly  human  soul,  brought 
nigh  to  God  by  simple  faith  in  Him.  "  Into 
His  hand  I  commend  my  spirit,  when  I  sleep 
and  when  I  wake;  and  with  my  spirit,  my 
body  also:  the  Lord  is  with  mo  and  I  will  not 
fear." 

This  concluding  section  of  the  hymn  has  led 
to  the  suggestion  that  "  Adon  Olam  "  is  a  night 
prayer,  and  it  is  very  probable  that  this  is  the 


184  "ADON   OLAM" 

case.  In  some  liturgies,  the  only  occasions  on 
which  "  Adon  Olam  "  is  sung  are  certain  solemn 
evenings,  such  as  the  Eve  of  the  Day  of  Atone- 
ment. Many  Jews  recite  "Adon  Olam"  every 
night,  just  before  retiring  to  rest,  and  the  habit 
is  a  very  good  one.  So,  too,  "  Adon  Olam"  is 
the  hymn  used  at  the  death-bed.  The  soul  falls 
asleep  cheered  by  these  words  of  simple  faith, 
upborne  by  the  sure  hope  that  the  awakening 
will  be  in  presence  of  the  Father. 

Yes,  it  is  a  simple  faith  :  it  is  also  the  final 
word  of  religion.  All  other  doctrines  of  Judaism 
are  ingredients  of  the  religion,  but  they  are  all 
mere  handmaids  to  this  master  doctrine — this 
simple  faith  of  the  child  in  God's  unity,  eternity, 
and  love.  It  is  the  faith  of  the  child  who  goes 
to  sleep  in  its  mother's  arms.  The  fluttering 
fears  of  the  dark  are  soothed  by  its  full  assur- 
ance that  the  mother  is  there.  Its  sense  of  the 
mother's  presence  bridges  over  for  the  child  the 
awful  chasm  between  consciousness  and  uncon- 
sciousness. Its  sense  of  the  mother's  presence 
is  its  only  link  between  night  and  morning. 
What  are  we  all  but  children  in  this  respect? 
Nay,  what  are  we  at  all,  unless  we  be  as 
children?  Grown-up  men  and  women  we  are 
not,  if  we  have  lost  our  child-like  confidence  in 
the  Father's  eternity  and  love. 

"  So  runs  my  dream  :  but  what  am  I? 
An  infant  crying  in  the  night ! 
An  infant  crying  for  the  light  1 
And  with  no  language  but  a  cry." 


"ADON   OLAM"  185 

But  why  does  Tennyson  use  the  figure  as  an 
expression  of  despair  ?  We  can  only  approach 
God  with  an  infant-cry  ?  But  it  is  just  this 
pitiful  infant-cry  that  goes  quickest  to  the 
Father's  heart.  So  men  must  cast  off  pride  before 
God ;  they  must  go  to  Him,  not  as  those  who  see, 
but  as  those  who  grope ;  not  as  those  who  know, 
but  as  those  who  trust.  Life  is  a  riddle,  and  the 
grave  is  an  abyss  which  no  philosophy  can  span, 
But  does  not  each  morn  give  the  lie  to  the  fears 
of  yesternight  ?  Can  we  not,  like  the  child,  find 
in  the  sense  of  the  eternal  presence  of  our  loving 
Father,  the  assurance  of  our  own  immortality  ? 
Does  not  His  eternity  link  with  eternity  our 
fleeting  days  and  nights  ?  Each  morning  reveals 
that  tho  night  has  passed.  And  when  the  long 
night  comes,  which  has  no  morning  for  us  on 
earth,  shall  not  our  simple  faith  make  easy  for 
us  the  passage  to  that  heavenly  day  which  has 
never  a  night  to  it  ?  As  a  line  version  of  the 
last  stanza  of  "  Adon  Olam  "  runs  : — 

"To  Him  my  spirit  I  consign  : 
Asleep,  awake,  I  will  not  fear ; 
My  body,  too,  I  do  resign  ; 
I  dread  no  evil ;  God  is  near." 


Printed  by  BA1LAHTYUE,  Hanson  &*  Co. 
Edinburgh  tSrf  Londuu 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    000  764 


55    8 


